Conceptual schemes and empiricism: What Davidson saw and McDowell missed

Abstract

This paper is an examination and evaluation of McDowell's criticisms of Davidson's view's on conceptual schemes and empiricism. I will argue that McDowell does not understand the real nature of Davidson's arguments against the scheme-content dualism and that his new empiricist proposal fails to solve all the problems that old empiricism has traditionally raised. This is so because Davidson does not try to reject only a certain conception of experience by rejecting the dualism of scheme and content, but a way of thinking about meaning and knowledge that assumes a dualism that cannot be maintained.