Sophist Vs Skeptic: Two Paradigms of Intentional Transaction

Abstract

I discuss two ways of conceptualizing how the interface is drawn between subject and object, or, in more naturalistic terms, how an organism comes to distinguish itself from its environment. the skeptical paradigm (kant's "critique of pure reason", husserlian phenomenology, most cognitive science) presumes that access to our own minds is more transparent than access to what lies beyond our minds. the sophist paradigm (kant's "critique of practical reason", hegelian phenomenology, pragmatism) presumes no such difference in access, suggesting that the external world may itself be an objectification of our own self-ignorance. i argue that the latter paradigm leads to a more "ecologically valid" phenomenology.