Science, Perception and Reality

by Wilfrid Sellars

Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man
Being and Being Known
Phenomenalism
The Language of Theories
Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind
Truth and “Correspondence”
Naming and Saying
Grammar and Existence: A Preface to Ontology
Particulars
Is There a Synthetic A Priori?
Some Reflections on Language Games

Wilfrid Sellars (2012-09-27T05:00:00+00:00). Science, Perception, and Reality (Kindle Locations 29-38). Kindle Edition.

Genres: Philosophy, Science, Nonfiction

366 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Wilfrid Stalker Sellars (May 20, 1912 - July 2, 1989) was an American philosopher. His father was the noted Canadian-American philosopher Roy Wood Sellars, a leading American philosophical naturalist in the first half of the twentieth-century. Wilfrid was educated at Michigan, the University of Buffalo, and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, obtaining his highest earned degree, an MA, in 1940. During WWII, he served in military intelligence. He then taught at the University of Iowa, the University of Minnesota, Yale University, and from 1963 until his death, at the University of Pittsburgh.

Sellars is best known as a critic of foundationalist epistemology, but his philosophical works are more generally directed toward the ultimate goal of reconciling intuitive ways of describing the world (both those of common sense and traditional philosophy) with a thoroughly naturalist, scientific account of reality. He is widely regarded both for great sophistication of argument and for his assimilation of many and diverse subjects in pursuit of a synoptic vision. He was perhaps the first philosopher to synthesize elements of American pragmatism with elements of British and American analytic philosophy and Austrian and German logical positivism. His work also reflects a sustained engagement with the German tradition of transcendental idealism, most obviously in his book Science and Metaphysics: Kantian Variations.

Robert Brandom, his junior colleague at Pittsburgh, named Sellars and Willard van Orman Quine as the two most profound and important philosophers of their generation. Sellars' goal of a synoptic philosophy that unites the everyday and scientific views of reality is the foundation and archetype of what is sometimes called the "Pittsburgh School", whose members include Brandom, John McDowell, and John Haugeland. Other philosophers strongly influenced by Sellars span the full spectrum of contemporary English-speaking philosophy, from neopragmatism (Richard Rorty) to eliminative materialism (Paul Churchland) to rationalism (Laurence BonJour). Sellars' philosophical heirs also include Hector-Neri Castaneda, Bruce Aune, Jay Rosenberg, Johanna Seibt, Andrew Chrucky, Jeffrey Sicha, Pedro Amaral, Thomas Vinci, Willem de Vries, Timm Triplett, and Michael Williams.

Reviews

[David Auerbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

This contains the classic "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" as well as most of the other early, seminal essays by Sellars. I think Sellars is THE great analytic philosopher of the late 20th century, and the first person to really pick up the gauntlet that Wittgenstein (and to some extent Quine) threw down. I.e.: if words do not denote, how do we communicate?

It's just a shame he's such a confusing and disorganized writer....

[Aung Sett Kyaw Min · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are juicy bits and pieces of philosophy of science scattered throughout the twelve essays. Many essays in this collection tend to start off fairly accessible but get technical really fast before zooming out to the bigger picture.
If you don't have a serviceable background in Carnap and the philosophy of language, I suggest skipping chapters 6,7, 8 though chapters 8 in particular contains interesting insights on the ontological import of the existential quantification over predicate or sentential variables (i.e. does such a quantification commit us to Platonically affirming the existence of abstract entities such as qualities, kinds and propositions).
Setting aside the classics "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man" and "Empiricism and Philosophy of Mind", I found chapter 11 "Some Reflections on Language Games" wherein Sellars explores the fruitful distinctions between pattern governed behavior and rule following, game and metagame, and causes and reasons, to be the single most enlightening philosophical essay I've read all year. The suggestion at the end that the scientific theories could prompt us to introduce new "material moves/inferences" in the non-theoretical (everyday) language sees Sellars at his most revisionary with regards to the stereoscopic "joining" of the scientific image to the manifest image which could entail a partial liquidation of the latter by the former.

[Chant · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term."

Sellars, to put it in the common usage of the parlance of our times, is a philosopher's philosopher. Sellars spares no expense on some of the most pressing philosophical issues that are still being discussed to this day. I will admit that Sellars' way of speaking/writing can be a bit of a turn off for many (which I can now see why people are not receptive to McDowell or Brandom's style of writing) but once you get a handle on his way of speaking, the lectures are lively and truly thought provoking.

[Jooseppi Räikkönen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is getting boozed up af the solution to becoming the universe's biggest galaxy brain???? I read Sellars last in undergraduate and it is rare that I return to someone after several years and they reblow my mind in a billion ways. Holy fuck.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the two famous ones. They were OK. The ideas were OK. The writing was bad.