Wilfrid Sellars
Nothing is simply given to us in experience without concepts – knowing means being able to give reasons, within a space of reasons.
Placement
Critique of the “myth of the given”; the manifest and the scientific image.
Key ideas
- Myth of the given
- Space of reasons
Influence
Influenced by 4
Immanuel Kant
influenced by
Sellars took up Kant’s distinction between sensibility and understanding for his account of sensory and conceptual elements in perception (Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes, 1968). W. Sellars, Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes (John Locke Lectures 1965–66; publ. 1968); SEP “Wilfrid Sellars”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804
Charles Sanders Peirce
influenced by
Sellars took over Peirce’s idea of truth as the ideal end of inquiry, calling the final conceptual framework of science ‘Peirceish’ (Science and Metaphysics, 1968). W. Sellars, Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes (1968); SEP “Wilfrid Sellars”; SEP “Charles Sanders Peirce”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Charles Sanders Peirce › 1839–1914
Ludwig Wittgenstein
influenced by
Sellars took up Wittgenstein’s language games and met the regress of rules with pattern-governed behaviour that precedes explicit rule-obeying (‘Some Reflections on Language Games’, 1954). W. Sellars, “Some Reflections on Language Games”, Philosophy of Science 21 (1954); SEP “Wilfrid Sellars”
Evidence: AI draft
Ludwig Wittgenstein › 1889–1951
Rudolf Carnap
influenced by
Sellars developed Carnap’s logical syntax and semantics into a ‘pure pragmatics’ of rule-governed language, the frame of his later epistemology (‘Pure Pragmatics and Epistemology’, 1947). W. Sellars, “Pure Pragmatics and Epistemology”, Philosophy of Science 14 (1947); “Autobiographical Reflections” (1975); SEP “Wilfrid Sellars”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Rudolf Carnap › 1891–1970
Influenced 1
Richard Rorty
influenced
Rorty took Sellars’s critique of the ‘Myth of the Given’ (1956) as a key argument against foundationalism, later introducing the 1997 edition of the essay. W. Sellars, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind (1956), introd. R. Rorty (1997); R. Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979); SEP “Richard Rorty”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Richard Rorty › 1931–2007
Criticism
Criticizes 2
Bertrand Russell
criticised
Sellars argued that Russell’s acquaintance either involves concepts or is not knowledge (‘Acquaintance and Description Again’, 1949), later calling such views the ‘Myth of the Given’ (1956). W. Sellars, “Acquaintance and Description Again”, Journal of Philosophy 46 (1949); “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” (1956); B. Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (1912), ch. 5
Evidence: AI draft
Bertrand Russell › 1872–1970
A. J. Ayer
criticised
Sellars’s ‘Myth of the Given’ critique targeted sense-datum theories; he examined Ayer’s view of sense-datum talk as ‘another language’ (‘Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind’, 1956, §§ 8–9). W. Sellars, “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” (1956), part II, §§ 8–9; A. J. Ayer, The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (1940)
Evidence: AI draft
A. J. Ayer › 1910–1989
Works
The Myth of the Given.
Position
Sellars’ most famous target was the “myth of the given”: the idea that knowledge rests on a foundation of pure sensory givens that are known without any concepts. Even the simplest perceptual report, he argued, already stands in the “logical space of reasons” – it can be justified and challenged and presupposes mastery of a whole conceptual system. Sellars also described the tension between the “manifest image” of the world, in which we experience ourselves as persons, and the “scientific image” of particles and processes, and sought to unite them in a single “stereoscopic” view. His work founded the so-called Pittsburgh School; Richard Rorty, Robert Brandom and John McDowell built on it.
Life & context
Sellars was born in Ann Arbor in 1912, the son of the philosopher Roy Wood Sellars. He studied in Michigan, Buffalo and, as a Rhodes Scholar, at Oxford, then taught in Iowa, Minnesota and at Yale. From 1963 he worked at the University of Pittsburgh. With Herbert Feigl he founded the journal Philosophical Studies.
Further main works
- Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man (1962)
- Science, Perception and Reality (1963)
- Science and Metaphysics (1968)
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