Perception as a Capacity for Knowledge is the 2011 Aquinas Lecture delivered by John McDowell on February 27, 2011 at Marquette University. Professor McDowells Lecture is the 75th in this esteemed series hosted by the Philosophy Department at Marquette. Past lecturers include Mortimer Adler, Anton. C. Pegis, Yves Simon, Jacques Maritain, Etienne Gilson, Bernard Lonergan, S.J., John N. Findlay, Alvin Plantinga, Paul Ricoeur, Alasdair MacIntyre, Louis Dupre, Myles Burnyeat, and Margaret Urban Walker.

A central theme in much of Professor McDowells work is the harmful effects, in modern philosophy and in the modern reception of premodern philosophy, of a conception of nature that reflects an understanding, in itself perfectly correct, of the proper goals of the natural sciences. In a number of contexts, he has argued that we can free ourselves from the characteristic sorts of philosophical anxiety by recalling the possibility of a less restrictive conception of what it takes for something to be natural.

About the Author
John McDowell studied at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and at New College, Oxford. After teaching at University College, Oxford from 1966-1986, Professor McDowell joined the Philosophy Department at the University of Pittsburg, where he has taught since then. His research and teaching fields include Greek Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Ethics. He has translated Platos Theaetetus for the Clarendon Plato Series (Oxford University Press, 1973), and authored Mind and World (Harvard University Press, 1994). His essays have been collected in several volumes: Mind, Value, and Reality (Harvard University Press, 1998), Meaning, Knowledge, and Reality (Harvard University Press, 1998), Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars (Harvard University Press, 2009), and The Engaged Intellect: Philosophical Essays (Harvard University Press, 2009).


Book Information
ISBN 9780874621792
Author John McDowell
Format Hardback
Page Count 65
Imprint Marquette University Press
Publisher Marquette University Press