Knowledge and Reality Selected Essays

This book brings together a selection of Colin McGinn's philosophical essays from the 1970s to the 1990s, whose unifying theme is the relation between the mind and the world. The essays range over a set of prominent topics in contemporary philosophy, including the analysis of knowledge, the a priori, necessity, possible worlds, realism, mental representation, appearance and reality, and color.

Knowledge and Reality brings together a selection of Colin McGinn's philosophical essays from the 1970s to the 1990s, whose unifying theme is the relation between the mind and the world. The essays range over a set of prominent topics in contemporary philosophy, including the analysis of knowledge, the a priori, necessity, possible worlds, realism, mental representation, appearance and reality, and colour. McGinn has written a new postscript to each essay, placing it in its philosophical context by sketching the background against which it was written, explaining its relations to other notable work, and offering his current reflections on the topic. The volume thus traces the development of McGinn's ideas and their role in some central philosophical debates. Seen together the essays offer a many-sided defence of realism, while emphasizing the epistemological price that realism exacts.

1 - The Concept of Knowledge
2 - A Priori and A Posteriori Knowledge
3 - A Note on the Essence of Natural Kinds
4 - On the Necessity of Origin
5 - Modal Reality
6 - The Structure of Content
7 - Conceptual Causation: Some Elementary Reflections
8 - Charity, Interpretation, and Epistemology
9 - Radical Interpretation and Epistemology
10 - The Mechanism of Reference
11 - Truth and Use
12 - An A Priori Argument for Realism
13 - Two Notions of Realism?
14 - Realist Semantics and Content-Ascription
15 - Another Look at Colour
16 - The Appearance of Colour

Colin McGinn is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He was previously Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy at the University of Oxford, and before that Reader in Philosophy at University College London.