Abstract
Traditional epistemology deals with questions such as the justification of empirical beliefs in a Cartesian representationalistic approach, which separates concepts and experience in two different metaphysical domains. But, in this way, it is difficult to explain how perception can have a normative role in the process of justification of our knowledge about the world. The solution recommended by McDowell’s Mind and World is to consider that perception entail conceptual abilities and it provides direct access to the objects of external reality. Furthermore, McDowell endorse Evan’s neo-Fregean theory of proposition, which partly explains how the content of experience can be structured in order to meet minimal empiricism. This papers aims to analyze the consequences of McDowell’s neo-Fregean semantics for the philosophical project devised in Mind and World. I argue that this connection between conceptualist theory of perception and semantics theory of de re senses support epistemological disjunctivism, which aims to evades the skeptical problem.
Keywords:
Singular thought; Perception; McDowell; Frege