Essay On Second Nature

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John McDowell’s concept of ‘second nature’ has been considered to be the most controversial and debatable element in his philosophy of mind. Discuss McDowell’s concept of ‘second nature’ and compare it a specific monist theory of mind which another philosopher has proposed.

For centuries, philosophers have debated on whether the person is made up of the mind, body or both. Dualistic philosophers see men as made up of both the body and the mind. The mind influences the body. On the other hand, monists reject that men is split into parts and view him as one whole person. Scientists tended to be dualists and theologians, monists.
The notion of second nature was introduced in McDowell’s book, ‘Mind and World’ by reference to Aristotle’s ethics. Aristotle argues that it takes habituation to evolve ethical virtue, for ethical virtue is not naturally given but is based upon natural tendencies that are realized through habituation. However, for Aristotle second nature does not develop from potentialities inherent in first nature but is a corruption of real human nature.

John McDowell, an African philosopher, speaks of second nature and he claims that it marks a considerable break with tradition. Second nature is an actualization of first nature potentialities. Second nature is not designed to help us see how to fit reason into a world understood naturalistically but it’s designed to help us see how to fit reason in a world understood as natural. However, there are familiar philisiophical puzzles about the relationship between the reason-involving states and episodes in our lives and the physical facts. For example, philosophers have argued that the fact that our bodies are composed of material governed by purely mechanical laws is in...

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...es that an object is nothing more than the sum of its qualities. The qualities of an objects are only the sensations one has when encountering an object. All these sensations are in the mind so the object itself has to be in the mind. For an object to be unperceived,there would have to be a set of ideas or experiences that are not in a mind and this is impossible.

Berkeley also argues that something is possible only if it can be imagined. He claimes that one cannot have a mental image of an unperceived object, so unperceived objects are impossible. He says that any mental image of an object would appear if one was to perceive it.

However, Berkeley’s idealism had its consequences. Objects did not persist for very long. Every time our perception of an object is interrupted, that object goes out of existence and is replaced by a duplicate when we observe it again.

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