Paragraph 3.1: Introduction
April 22, 2007
Early in the introduction to Mind and World John McDowell takes an almost apologetic tone as he leads the reader away from the overriding focus of empiricist philosophy since the birth of the Modern period, that of properly conceiving and analyzing human knowledge of the world, to what McDowell argues is the more primordial relation between homo sapiens and their environment, that of thought. While affirming the insight that problems of knowing are rooted in failures to understand adequately what is involved in thinking, we the authors of this essay wish to join the early Heidegger in taking a further step back beyond McDowell’s destination to what we contend is the further fundament of all human relations, that of existing.
