McDowell e as estátuas de Dédalo

Abstract

The subject of this paper is the concept of 'demonstrative concept', which has been introduced in philosophy by John McDowell in Mind and World. The analysis presented in the article has a reconstructive and a critical character. Its reconstructive drive may be viewed as required by the concise mode the philosopher adopted to present his theoretical innovation and comprehends an effort to make clear: (i) what is the difference between the temporal conditions necessary (a) to give conceptual status to the color shade we have before our eyes and (b) to our possession of ordinary concepts; (ii) the sui generis character of the universality proper to demonstrative concepts and the uniformity of their relations to what they are concepts of; (iii) the equivalence of their semantical regime to that which is proper to concepts of measurement standards; (iv) the very singular function performed by memory in the constitution and possession of demonstrative concepts. Now, the critical character of the paper firstly lies in the remark that there is a kind of inconsequence in the way McDowell conceives the employment of those concepts, namely in his refusal to admit that even though it is natural to say 'I see the shade in my mind's eye', it would be a mistake to think that when we recognize a color shade as being the same as the one we have seen before there is an inner comparison of it with the retained sample. The second of the paper critical points is the warning that, considering the complex constitution process of demonstrative concepts and its exacting semantic, it seems impossible to take them as coextensive to our human experience of colors.