Kant, Husserl, McDowell: The Non-Conceptual In Experience - Diametros, 41, 99-114

Kant, Husserl, McDowell: The Non-Conceptual in Experience

Corijn van Mazijk1

Abstract In this paper I analyze some important contemporary criticismsof McDowell´s conceptualism by Kant and Husserl scholars. ManyKant scholars have recently taken a stance against McDowell´sreading of Kant in Mind and World, arguing that Kant’s accountinvolves non-conceptual content. At the same time,phenomenologists such as Dreyfus (2013) have drawn on firstperson descriptions of skillful coping to support non-conceptual content, while Hopp (2010, 2011) bases himself onHusserl’s early theory of fulfillment in Logical Investigations toreject conceptualism. I will show for each of these Kantianand phenomenological theories that although they point tosomething significant, they fail to trouble McDowell’sconceptualism. I then turn to Barber’s (2008) and Mooney’s(2010) conceptualist readings of the later Husserl. Againstthem, I will argue that Husserl’s late phenomenology does makeroom for a kind of non-conceptual content inconceivable fromKant’s or McDowell’s viewpoint, but also that this need notcontradict McDowell’s conceptualism.

KeywordsMcDowell – Husserl – Non-Conceptual Content – Phenomenology –Kant – Conceptualism – Passive Synthesis

1 C. Van Mazijk, University of Groningen, Faculty of Philosophy, OudeBoteringestraat 52, 9712 GL Groningen, Netherlands - University of Leuven, Institute of Philosophy, Kardinaal Mercierplein 2, BE 3000, Leuven, BelgiumE-mail: [email protected]

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1. IntroductionRecently, discussions on non-conceptual content in EdmundHusserl′s phenomenology have seen a revival. This seemsdue partially to the work of John McDowell on the role ofsense perception in experience. In his already classicwork Mind and World (1994), McDowell advocates aconceptualist reading of Kant2 according to which therecan be no non-conceptual mental states. Those againstconceptualism mostly agree that there are at least ´´somemental states [that] can represent the world even thoughthe bearer of those states does not possess the conceptsrequired to specify their content´´.3 Conceptualists likeMcDowell, however, think that this line of thoughtinevitably results in what Wilfrid Sellars (1963)famously dubbed the ´´myth of the given´´. For that whichcannot be conceptually apprehended must in all waysescape the bounds of thought and is therefore, as Kant sodiversely put it, ´´blind´´,4 ´´as good as nothing for us´´,5 or ´´less than a dream´´.6 Therefore, McDowellasserts that the very idea of non-conceptual sense datawhich somehow affect our beliefs while at the same timeoffering a foothold in external reality must be avoided.But it seems the only alternative is a coherentismaccording to which thought does not touch upon the worldand beliefs are justified by other beliefs only. Such a

2 References to the Critique of Pure Reason are given abbreviated in parentheses in the text [CPR], following standard practice of ‘A’ and ‘B’ referring to the first and second edititions. Kant, I. (1998), Critique of Pure Reason. Ed. And trans. P. Guyer and A Wood. Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Cambridge University Press.3 Bermúdez [2003] p. 1.4 CPR A51 /B75.5 CPR A111.6 CPR A112.

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coherentism, at least on McDowell’s understanding,renders the whole idea of experience impossible. Thesolution he then proposes takes form as a conceptualistreading of Kant which is supposed to save thought′sbearing on external reality without invoking any kind ofnon-conceptual content that would be prone to the given.In this paper I compare McDowell′s conceptualism to

Husserl′s early and late phenomenology and recentinterpretations of both. I start out by discussingMcDowell′s conceptualist reading of Kant and some of thecriticisms it has received from Kant scholars. I willargue that their cases for Kantian non-conceptualism failto rebut McDowell’s conceptualist reading. I will thenlook at Hopp’s (2010, 2011) phenomenological critique ofMcDowell, which he bases on the phenomenology of theearly Husserl, and show why his arguments similarly havelittle bearing on McDowell’s conceptualism. Thirdly, Idiscuss Barber’s (2008) and Mooney’s (2010)interpretations of Husserl’s later work, who assert thatthe later Husserl and McDowell are in fundamentalagreement. I will argue that their position is correctbut for the wrong reasons. Contrary to theirinterpretations, I will show that Husserl’s focus onpassive synthesis allows him to move beyond experience inthe Kantian and McDowellean sense, which demands the roleof concepts in any synthesis, toward wholly passivesyntheses which operate freely from the rule of theunderstanding, and which are therefore non-conceptual.This position is, I argue, inconceivable from thestandpoint of Kant′s transcendental philosophy, since inthe latter both transcendental apperception and thecategories are taken to be involved in the lowest

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syntheses, even that of perception.7 Although this makessufficient room for non-conceptual content in Husserl’slater philosophy, I will argue that it need not beincompatible with McDowell’s conceptualism after all.

2. McDowell′s KantianismThe topics on which McDowell (1994, 2009, 2013) and manyothers with him recently embark broadly concern theepistemological role of the senses in the structure ofour experience and the relation between it and higherlevel acts of consciousness. To talk about senses andexperience, however, is already to use highly ambivalentterms. In Kant′s day and age, science and philosophy hadless to do with psychological or phenomenologicaldescriptions of passive perception or sensory episodes ofconsciousness then it does today. For Kant′s purposes, atheory of experience had primarily if not only toincorporate those elements required for mathematicalcalculations, the description of natural laws, and thelimits and transgressions of both.8 As is well known,these interests led him to define experience [Erfahrung]in a way that is much more narrow than is ours today: itrefers only to that part of our worldly sense-makingrelevant to the possibility of scientific progression,which in turn is conditioned by a priori intuitions and thecategories of the understanding. Experience, for Kant, isa synthesis of an intuition with a concept of whichknowledge is the end product.7 CPR B161.8 This division is reflected in the threefold structure of theProlegomena: how is pure mathematics possible? How is pure naturalscience possible? And: how is metaphysics in general possible? Thefirst corresponds roughly to the transcendental aesthetic, thesecond to the analytic, and the third to the dialectic.

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It is not immediately obvious where we should locatethe role of the senses in this Kantian picture ofexperience. McDowell favors an interpretation of Kant inwhich the term intuition points to the representationsprovided by sensible experience, whereas sensationsconsidered on their own are abstractions. If we were tocall any of the constituents of experience blind, then,it would have to be the senses and the sensations[Empfindungen] they supply, but only if we render them inan abstract isolation unfaithful to experience. This way,sensations (but not intuitions) are deprived of anyepistemological function and by consequence McDowell hasexcluded one important candidate for the myth of thegiven. It is in this respect that McDowell departs mostfrom Sellars (1963), who is slightly more favorable ofsensations.Having deprived the senses of the function Kant

provided them with in affording intuitions, McDowellstill needs to reconsider the meaning of intuition inorder not to let it fall prey to the myth of the given.McDowell therefore asserts that what happens inperception is an ´´opportunity for judging´´.9 This meansfirstly that perceptual experience providesrepresentations which form opportunities for discursiveacts. But in a second and more profound sense, it meansthat these perceptual representations are alreadyinformed by conceptual activity, regardless of whether astance of judgment is taken. For McDowell, in anyperception, the relevant conceptual capacities that couldbe put into play upon a discursive apprehension of therepresented object are already drawn upon. McDowell has

9 See also: McDowell [2013a].

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been ambiguous as to whether the content of a perceptionis different at all from that of a concept. In Mind andWorld, he writes ´´that things are thus and so is the content ofthe experience, and it can also be the content of ajudgment […] So it [perceptual experience] is conceptualcontent´´.10 But it is not McDowell’s intention to arguethat, as some critics have assumed, that the involvementof concepts in perception implies a distance between thesubject of the experience and the object he or sheintentionally relates to.11 For McDowell, the merelyperceiving or skillfully coping subject does not activelyengage in conceptual activity.12 Rather, the idea is thatsuch acts are passively informed by concepts, that is,without having to objectify the content as one does inmaking a propositional judgment. To see a cup of coffeeon one’s desk as well as to skillfully drink from it areacts that are ´´saddled´´ with conceptual capacities,which is to say that they are essentially reliant onconceptual capacities in a sense that does not distorttheir specific phenomenology. That this is so is thenexplained by adherence to the process of Bildung orcultural development in which human beings engage fromtheir birth onwards. McDowell’s conceptualist reading of Kant has stimulated

plenty new debates over Kantian conceptualism.13 Thosewho, against McDowell, favor a non-conceptualist readingof Kant, often draw on those fragments of the Critique whereKant seems to suppose that intuition can present objects10 McDowell [1994] p. 26.11 See for instance: Dreyfus [2013], Schear [2013].12 McDowell [2013b] pp. 41-46.13 See for instance: Hanna [2008], [2011a], [2011b], Ginsborg [2008],Watkins [2008], Allais [2009], Griffith [2010], Grüne [2009, 2011], [2013], De Sá Pereira [2013], Gomes [2014].

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without concepts being in play. These are three of them:

Objects can indeed appear to us without necessarilyhaving to be related to the functions of theunderstanding (A89/B122)

Appearances would nonetheless offer objects to ourintuition, for intuition by no means requires thefunctions of thinking (A90/B123)

The manifold of representations can be given in anintuition that is merely sensible, i.e., nothing butreceptivity (B129-B130)

An additional often heard counter argument is that Kant′sclaims on the constitutive role of the understanding forexperience are closely tied to his objective notion ofexperience which does not match ours today. As forinstance Hanna (2008) and de Sá Pereira (2013) point out,the relevant passages from the Critique which indicate theindispensable role of the understanding for experiencecould be interpreted relative to objective experience orknowledge rather than as pertaining to experience in ourcontemporary sense. The third and, to my view, mostimportant argument against McDowell’s conceptual readingof Kant comes from Hanna’s interpretation of Kant’s pre-critical works. In brief, Hanna (2008) believes that itis essential to Kant’s early position with regard todebates on space that there is an element to experiencethat is not conceptual. The reason for this is that Kantthought it impossible to conceptually differentiate two

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objects that are each other’s mirror image.14 Thus, in animagined space with a left and a right hand in it thatare otherwise identical, no conceptualist could evermathematically assert the difference that humansobviously would experience on an encounter with bothhands. This problem, addressed by Hanna as the ´´Two-Hands Argument´´ led Kant to see that there has to be anon-conceptual element to our experience of space andtime. In the Critique, this would be called pure intuition.Later, in What Does It Mean To Orient Oneself In Thinking?, Kantwould also refer to it as a sense of orientation. These three criticisms pose problems for McDowell’s

conceptualism both for itself and as an interpretation ofKant. I believe, however, that McDowell’s reading of Kantcan be defended against the three main criticisms justoutlined. Firstly, the fragments drawn on by non-conceptualists do not as such make a case for non-conceptualism, given that the Critique contains a more orless equal number of passages that state the opposite.They do not by themselves offer a reason to favor thesefragments over the others and therefore do not offerunambiguous support for non-conceptualism. The secondargument for non-conceptualism is justly based on thedifference between Kant’s concept of experience and ours.If we look at the B-Deduction, we find Kant arguing forthe transcendental necessity of the categories for allexperience. So far, the ambiguity might obtain. However,a bit later on,15 in what is sometimes referred to as the

14 See: Kant [2003] – I. Kant, Concerning the ultimate ground of the differentiation of directions in space, In: The Cambridge Edition to the Works of Immanuel Kant: Theoretical Philosophy 1755-1770, ed. D. Walford, E. Meerbote, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.15 CPR B160-162.

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second step of the B-Deduction16, Kant makes it clear thathe wants the categories to play their part in allpossible perception as well:

Consequently, all synthesis, through which even perception itselfbecomes possible, stands under the categories (CPR B161 myitalics)

The strong claim contained in this sentence is notbrought about by an accidental turn of phrase. It is thecore of the argumentative structure of the TranscendentalDeduction. Kant believes that only this way thetranscendental use of the categories for all experiencecan be maintained. Consequently, the attempt to reduceKant’s conceptualism to a theory of knowledge in order tomake room for a non-conceptualist reading of simpleperception, as so many scholars have attempted, is boundto fail.Hanna’s so-called ´´Two Hands Argument´´ (Hanna 2008)

drawn from Kant’s writings on space shows that Kantthroughout his pre-critical as well as his critical phasebelieved experience to contain an element that isintrinsically non-conceptual. The argument, the way I seeit, is entirely correct, which means that non-conceptualism has to be appropriated in any completeKantian theory of perception. Still I do not believe,however, that it should pose a threat for McDowell’sreading. In order to see why, it is necessary todistinguish two kinds of (non-)conceptual content. On the

16 I interpret the two steps of the B-Deduction as an attempt to justify the validity of the categories as a priori synthetic for experience by first showing their necessity and second explaining their universality’ Rauscher [2012] pp. 1-2.

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one hand, for a perceptual content to be conceptual couldmean it lives up to these two standards: (a) concepts arepassively drawn upon in perception (conceptually‘saddled’) and (b) the content is essentially open toconceptualization (‘opportunity for judging’). This isthe kind of content McDowell is interested in when heargues for conceptualism. It is important to see thatthis reading only includes the intentional orrepresentational content of the experience; it isrestricted to that which an act of consciousness isabout, its objective content. I will for now call thisposition general content conceptualism.17 But at the same time,any perceptual intentional content could be said tocontain ´´particularity conditions´´ or what Husserlcalls real (reelles) content. For example, right now Imight be perceptually related to the cup of coffee on mydesk. Although the intentional content of my perceptiondoes not change during the few seconds I am looking atthe cup, the exact sense in which it is present is incontinuous flux. For one, my perspective on the cupchanges constantly through the smallest movements of myeyes and body. Given that (i) these particularityconditions are incessantly changing and (ii) I am notintentionally related to them but rather to the objectgiven through them, it is impossible for me to properlyconceptualize them. I will call this kind of non-conceptual content real content non-conceptualism. I believe thenon-conceptualism Hanna finds in Kant’s writings on spaceshould be taken to match real content non-conceptualism.However, Hanna does not make the distinction just madebetween real and general content conceptualism.17 See also Van Mazijk [2014a] for my complete interpretation of Kant’s position on conceptualism.

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Therefore, he does not see that Kant’s arguments from hisearlier works on space can be exhausted in terms of realcontent non-conceptualism while at the same timemaintaining a conceptualist stance at the level ofgeneral content. The same distinction could also apply toMcDowell. For a general content conceptualist likeMcDowell, the particularity conditions alluded to by thereal content non-conceptualist are irrelevant; they donot constitute reasons for beliefs and therefore do notbelong to the space of reasons to start with.Consequently, McDowell could simply set aside the pointmade by real content non-conceptualists, and the TwoHands Argument thereby fails to make a case againstMcDowell’s general content conceptualist reading of Kant.

3. The Early Husserl and Non-Conceptual ContentPhenomenologists are, unlike McDowell, primarilyinterested in providing accurate descriptions ofexperience. The careful analyses of everyday experiencescarried out by some of the most influentialphenomenologists of the past have led a number ofcontemporary phenomenologists to take a critical stanceregarding conceptualism. One important phenomenologicalcritique of McDowell comes from Hubert Dreyfus, who inthe 2013-book The McDowell/Dreyfus-Debate18 turns to thephenomenological descriptions of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty to argue against McDowell’s conceptualism. Dreyfusfocuses specifically on descriptions of pre-reflective,skillful action. For one, he follows Heidegger that we donot have to think about the doorknob on the door in orderto use it to enter or leave a room. In fact, the doorknob18 Schear [2013] – J. K. Schear, Mind, Reason, and Being-in-the-World: the McDowell-Dreyfus Debate. Ed. by J. K. Schear, London, New York, Routledge

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does not have to be apprehended at all. Such ‘absorbedcopings’ are mindless activities; they involve nointentionality, that is, no subject/object-relation, andtherefore, it is claimed, no rationality.19 The conclusionhe then draws is that the operations of the understandingare not involved here, and hence conceptualism is false.I have already shown in the previous section why Ibelieve this argument cannot be held against McDowell.The latter nowhere claims that it would be a necessarycondition for conceptual content that an intentionaldistance between subject and object should obtain.Dreyfus, and Schear (2013) likewise, miss out onMcDowell’s notions of Bildung and ´´second nature´´, whichpoint to the fact that human beings can passively employcapacities that belong to the understanding, that is,without actively contemplating the relevant contentinvolved, and thus without distorting the specificphenomenology of skillful coping of which most of oureveryday lives are comprised. Schear and Dreyfus leavethe entire issue unaddressed whether the pre-reflectiveaction of opening a door would have looked the same – orwould have been possible at all – without passiveknowledge of how door knobs work, knowledge of what liesbehind the door, and knowledge of why I would want to gothere. McDowell wants to argue that rationality of thiskind pervades skillful coping and that these actions aretherefore a part of the ´´space of reasons´´ - which isthe key term in McDowell’s conceptualism – but Dreyfus´sphenomenological argument does not connect to that.20

19 See also my book review of The McDowell/Dreyfus-Debate for more elaborate discussions on these topics: Van Mazijk [2014b]20 Note that this also seems to be McDowell’s position in his response to Dreyfus, see McDowell [2013b] pp. 41-58.

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Hopp (2010, 2011) provides a different argument fornon-conceptual content based on Husserl’s LogicalInvestigations, which he similarly directs against McDowell.In Perception and Knowledge (2011), Hopp focuses specificallyon perceptual content and Husserl’s phenomenologicalaccount of ´´fulfillment´´.21 Hopp asserts that aperceptual content does not have to be thought about inorder to be there for me. What’s more, the perception isprecisely not thinking and not conceptual: it is notthought - which is empty or signitive, as Husserl puts itin Logical Investigations - but rather something else, namelysomething that can epistemically fulfill an empty thought.For instance, when I think about a white floor, I intendsomething merely emptily, without the white flooractually being given to me sensibly. If this emptythought of a white floor is now combined with acorresponding perceptual givenness of a white floor, thena ´´synthesis of recognition´´ takes place in which theempty thought is ´´fulfilled´´. Hopp believes thatperception must have non-conceptual content because itcan play this role of epistemic fulfillment in a way merethought cannot. Conceptual thought by itself is empty;perception, however, can offer a distinctive surplus, whichmust therefore be non-conceptual. According to Hopp, the conceptualism of for instance

John McDowell (1994, 2009) is ´´utterly incapable ofexplaining why perceptual experiences play thisdistinctive and privileged role in the production ofknowledge´´,22 because it allegedly overlooks theimportant role of fulfillment perception plays: 21 For a more elaborate discussion of Hopp´s book, see also my reviewof it: Van Mazijk [2014c].22 Hopp [2011] p. 2.

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I can compare my belief that an apple is red with theapple that is red, and when I do, I know something Iwould not have known merely by believing that that appleis red23

The above fragment is an argument for a particular surplusof perception relative to thought. Its claim, it seems tome, is convincing. Seeing that an apple is red offersknowledge of a kind I would not have had merely byconnecting the ideas ´´apple´´ and ´´red´´ in my head andtrying to belief their combination to be actually so.However, it is entirely unclear why McDowell would haveto disagree with this. Conceptualism, as I have shownalready, is a thesis about the kind of things that canconstitute reasons for beliefs. It does not imply denyingthat intuition is something very different from thoughtin a way that would oppose Husserl's early theory offulfillment. In fact, McDowell knows well that inperception something is given while in thought there isnot.24 A denial of the specific function of intuition inknowledge would rather be a part of the kind offrictionless coherentism McDowell is eager to avoid. Hoppis certainly right that when ´´I come home to find mybasement flooded, the proposition ‘My basement isflooded’ occurs to me because I am presented with myflooded basement´´.25 But this is precisely the kind ofphrase McDowell would hold in support of conceptualism:does the fact that I already see a flooded basement and the factthat this can function as a reason for believing it to be23 Hopp [2011] p. 102.24 McDowell [2009] p. 263.25 Hopp [2010].

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so not by itself indicate that some form of rationalityis involved already at the level of perception? Afterall, what I see does not await for me to endow it withsense: I see a flooded basement, and because I do, thatperception can fulfill my thought of it. Even if Hoppdoes not accept this as sufficient ground to speak ofconceptual content at the perceptual level, he doesappear to agree that the perception is a part of thespace of reasons – and that is all McDowell is trulyafter. Both Dreyfus’s Heidegger-inspired case for non-

conceptual content and Hopp’s one based on the earlyHusserlian account of fulfillment present interestingways of thinking about non-conceptual content. However,the kind of non-conceptual content they argue for havelittle bearing on McDowell’s conceptualism. In the nextsection, I will consider the phenomenology of the laterHusserl and some contemporary readings of him that committo his agreement with McDowell.

4. The Later Husserl and Non-Conceptual ContentAbout the last twenty years of his life, Husserlreinvented phenomenology by working on what he calledpassive synthesis: the phenomenological analyses ofexperiences that the subject does not activelyparticipate in, as for instance in skillful coping andvisual perception of some kinds. This allowed Husserl toconceive of experience as layered; building up frompassive sense-makings of which the experiencer is unawareto conceptual activities in which he or she activelyengages. Roughly speaking, on the basis of his latemasterpiece Experience and Judgment, three such layers of

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experience can be distinguished, which are more or lesshierarchically structured: 1. Primary passivity26: the lowestrealm of sense-making that happens in completeindependence of the active subject; 2. ExplicativeContemplation: acts of perception which are realizedwithout the subject’s explicit command but which arenevertheless consciously experienced in some way by himor her. This is, as I take it, the usual case of visualperception; 3. Conceptual activities such as judgments ofexistence which are brought about by the subject.27 One important transcendental mechanism Husserl thinks

governs the lowest two layers of experience is what herefers to as ‘types’. I shall not here try to explain thecomplex analyses Husserl goes through in order to makethat notion plausible, but instead restrict myself towhat types are said to do.28 Husserl believes that everytime I experience a new kind of object, a new type isautomatically installed through which objects that aresimilar to it will immediately be apprehended as familiarand known.29 For the adult human being, most visualperception is said to be governed by types. We do notperceive strange, empty forms first which we thenactively endow with meaning. Rather, perception alreadypresents us the object as something that we are familiarwith. This does not mean we perceive a cup of coffeeimmediately as being a cup of coffee, which would involvethe apprehension of concepts and categorial structures. For the question of the conceptual saddledness of

26 Husserl [1997] pp. 64-85.27 A fourth layer might be added, called ‘eidetic intuition’, but I omitted it here as it is irrelevant to the aims of this paper.28 The reader is best advised to read Part I of Husserl’s Experience and Judgment [1997].29 Husserl [1997] pp. 121-124, 149-151.

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perception, phenomenologists may thus turn to Husserl’snotion of type to argue that we never have blindintuitions, as McDowell interprets the famous Kantianphrase that ‘intuitions without concepts are blind’.30

Therefore, some have argued, intuitions for Husserl toohave to be conceptually endowed. A second argument forHusserlian conceptualism, and the most important one alsopresented by Husserl scholars Barber (2008) and Mooney(2010), is based on a specific interpretation of therelation between these three different strata ofexperience. Both claim that Husserl does not consider thevarious layers of experience as truly distinct, fromwhich it would follow that primary passivity – the lowestkind of sense-making which involves no consciouspartaking of the subject – can also never be whollyseparated from conceptual activities. Mooney adds to thisthat primary passivity is something we once had to gothrough but which we have left behind in become adult.31

This would mean that the kind of passive syntheticprocesses Husserl describes as taking place without usbeing aware of it are in fact abstractions, for inreality they are saddled with concepts much in the wayMcDowell would have it. If this argument is sound, asBarber and Mooney believe, then the later Husserl wouldbe a conceptualist just like McDowell.In what follows, I want to show that these arguments

are incorrect, but also that Husserl could still be aconceptualist in McDowell’s sense. Let me start withtaking on the first argument, that the guidance of oureveryday perceptions by types would come down to tacituse of concepts. Husserl regards the realm of passive30 McDowell [1994] pp. 49-65, Kant [1998] A51/B75.31 Mooney [2010] pp. 38-43.

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experience as dominated by an interplay of among othersbodily movements, bodily affections and anticipationswhich together structure the objects of experience beforethe experiencer is aware of it.32 Very often indeed, thesepassive organizations are guided by earlier conceptualactivities through the permanent installment of a so-called type. For instance, I would not have perceived theroom I just entered as full of computers had I not oncelearned what computers are through conceptual effort.Because I once learned the appropriate concept, I can nowsimply see that the room is full of computers withouthaving to actively think that this is so. The kind oftypes involved in this case Husserl also calls a secondarypassivity.33 In my opinion, this corresponds perfectly toMcDowell′s notion of perceptions saddled withspontaneity. But the terminology already indicates thatthere is something more. For Husserl’s phenomenologyshows that the mechanism of type is not in fact reliant onconceptual activity.34 It is also possible to experiencenew objects passively, whether through visual, auditoryor tactile perception, and still attain a type which willhenceforth steer my perceptions of similar formations.35

For instance, a pre-linguistic infant (or a cat for thatmatter) does not have to have learned the concept´´rabbit´´ in order to have some passive predictionsabout how a rabbit will proceed its way around thegarden. This is not to say that the child canconceptually calculate or predict where the rabbit willend up. The child’s body, however, will be able to

32 Husserl [1997] pp. 71-101.33 Husserl [1997] pp. 279.34 See also Lohmar [2006] who shares my viewpoint on this.35 Husserl [1997] pp. 124-127.

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produce a response in anticipation to the movement of therabbit when necessary, for instance when the rabbitapproaches the child. The point here is that the body canpassively structure objects in the visual (or otherwiseperceived) environment and produce responses to theseobjects without any concepts having been in play at anylevel. This is an example of types at the level ofprimary passivity: forms of sense-making that are notconceptual or conceptually endowed but neverthelesssuccessfully provide relevant information about theenvironment by way of association with earlierexperiences.36

Unlike McDowell, Husserl has very specific ideas aboutwhat counts as a concept and what not. He thinks ofconceptual activity as a complex act actively performedby the subject through which something is intuited thatis not itself sensibly given. By ´´not itself sensiblygiven´´ Husserl means that to conceptualize the cup ofcoffee in front of me is to make thematic categorialstructures that obtain between the different aspects ofthe perceptual object and me. For instance, in saying‘this is a cup of coffee’, I judge about the being of thecup, which is not as such given to me perceptually, thatis, the being does not and cannot figure in receptiveexperience. Conceptual judgment therefore involvessomething that cannot be receptively constituted. Husserlwrites: ‘objectivities of the understanding [concepts]can never be originally apprehended in a mere act ofreception; they are not preconstituted in pure

36 Needless to say, Husserl does not want to say anything about the experiences of infants or cats, but these examples help illustrate my point.

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passivity’.37 This is not to deny, as I have just shown,that concepts can work their way back into passivity andbecome a secondary passivity. McDowell’s position seemstherefore well supported by Husserl’s laterphenomenology. However, McDowell’s theory demands thatintuition is thoroughly determined by conceptualcapacities. But this is a claim which, taken at facevalue, Husserl´s phenomenology cannot support. For as Ihave shown, Husserl also has a phenomenology of primarypassivity, which is unaffected by concepts, secondarypassivity or the subject´s Bildung. Phenomenologicallyspeaking, then, primary passivity must be a kind of non-conceptual content, even, it seems, on McDowell´s ownterms.It should be clear that the idea of primary passivity

and the notion of non-conceptual content I have ascribedto it do not imply an utterly unstructured reception ofblind intuitions or a commitment to the myth of thegiven. Husserl does not ascribe a basic epistemic role toprimary passivity, as in fulfilling the foundationalist′sdesire for an unmediated apprehension of sensuouscontent. The idea of primary passivity and thephenomenological mechanisms that operate in it are onlyan attempt at phenomenological description of howentirely passive experience works.What I have said thus far should already be sufficient

to provide an answer to the second argument posited byBarber and Mooney that primary passivity would be anabstraction from real experience in which the conceptualis always involved. A further argument against their casecould, I think, be drawn from the general methodical

37 Husserl [1997] p. 251 my italics.

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principles of Husserl’s phenomenology. I find it hard toconceive of Husserl’s analyses of passive synthesis asabstractions in the sense Barber and Mooney endorse,given that phenomenology cannot analyze that which is notimmediately and with certainty given upon reflection. Ifpassive synthesis would be an abstraction, then it wouldnot be given upon reflection and therefore could not beanalyzed phenomenologically in the way Husserl wants toanalyze it. I find Mooney’s additional characterizationof these writings as pertaining to something that we haveleft behind in becoming an adult particularlyimplausible. The reason for this is, once more, that theadult phenomenologist cannot analyze the experiences ofchildren nor of himself as a child, for these experiencesare not given to him immediately upon reflection, as isessential to the phenomenological method. In contrast with the kind of non-conceptual content

Dreyfus, Schear and Hopp argue for, the one I developedon the basis of Husserl's analyses of primary passivitydoes not ignore the specifically passive sense in whichMcDowell sees concepts integrated in experience.Therefore, if Husserl's theory is correct, and itplausibly results, as I have suggested, in a kind ofcontent unaffected by concepts and the culturaldevelopment of the subject, it would appear to present aviable alternative to McDowell's conceptualism. However,I do not think that this need be the case. It is usefulto recall that McDowell's conceptualism is a theory aboutexperience in the light of justification, that is: ofwhat constitutes a reason for a belief, i.e. what belongsto the space of reasons and what not. The fact that thekind of sense-makings involved in primary passivity are

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not affected by the conceptual abilities of the subjectalso establishes that those very same sense-makingscannot be a part of the space of reasons. Therefore,Mooney’s and Barber’s conclusions turn out to be rightafter all that the later Husserl does not contradictMcDowell's conceptualism.

6. ConclusionAs I have shown in the first parts of this paper,McDowell’s conceptualist reading of Kant cannot easily berebutted by reference either to Kant’s pre-critical orcritical writings. The arguments for Kantian non-conceptualism I discussed are the best I know of, but Ido not think they are good enough to trouble theconceptualist. Hanna's argument from incongruentcounterparts can, I have argued, be appropriated bydistinguishing between Kantian real content non-conceptualism and general content conceptualism.McDowell's conceptualist reading of Kant is one thatfocuses on general content conceptualism, that is: onwhat can figure as a reason for believing something to bethe case. Because Hanna's argument can be made to fitreal content non-conceptualism, it fails to touch uponthese issues, and therefore it cannot trouble McDowell. The phenomenological attempts at countering McDowell's

conceptualism that I have discussed were focusedspecifically on skillful coping and on the structure offulfillment as Husserl presented it in Logical Investigations.Although these cases successfully establish interestingphenomenological notions of non-conceptual content, Ihave argued that it is wrong to take them as having muchbearing on McDowell's conceptualism, for the reason that

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they do not take the specifically passive, habituallysedimentated sense of conceptual activity properly intoaccount. The later Husserl offers better resources to discuss

the conceptuality of experience in the sense McDowell isafter. Contrary to the interpretations offered by Barberand Mooney, I have argued that, phenomenologicallyspeaking, primary passivity can be interpreted as astratum of experience filled with non-conceptual content,even though this need not contradict the kind ofconceptualism McDowell proposes.

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