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Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind
The most important work by one of America's greatest twentieth-century philosophers, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind is both the epitome of Wilfrid Sellars' entire philosophical system and a key document in the history of philosophy. First published in essay form in 1956, it helped bring about a sea change in analytic philosophy. It broke the link, which had bound Russell and Ayer to Locke and Hume--the doctrine of "knowledge by acquaintance." Sellars' attack on the Myth of the Given in Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind was a decisive move in turning analytic philosophy away from the foundationalist motives of the logical empiricists and raised doubts about the very idea of "epistemology."
With an introduction by Richard Rorty to situate the work within the history of recent philosophy, and with a study guide by Robert Brandom, this publication of Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind makes a difficult but indisputably significant figure in the development of analytic philosophy clear and comprehensible to anyone who would understand that philosophy or its history.
With an introduction by Richard Rorty to situate the work within the history of recent philosophy, and with a study guide by Robert Brandom, this publication of Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind makes a difficult but indisputably significant figure in the development of analytic philosophy clear and comprehensible to anyone who would understand that philosophy or its history.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
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About the author
Wilfrid Sellars
38 books48 followersWilfrid 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
February 3, 2020
tfw u get jebaited into reading Analytic Philosophy's version of the Phenomenology
February 13, 2020
Myth of the Given found dead in Miami
August 21, 2020
"Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" is almost as challenging to read as it is brilliant, but the last pages make up for all the effort by providing one of the most complete and innovative theories of human cognition in the history of Analytic philosophy. It is without a doubt one of the best works of philosophy that I have encountered.
But first a note on Sellars's style. While I do believe, like other reviewers, that Sellars's prose in undoubtedly difficult, I think it is by no means bad. It is a strange style, borne out of the conciseness of his contemporaries, the oddity of some of the most recent Teutonic thinkers he caters to (Carnap, Wittgenstein) and the heaviness of the elder Germans whose shoulders he rests on (Kant and Hegel). But, despite having to read most sentences more than once, I can't say it's a bad style. It's weighty, yet not verbose; concise and not dull; strange yet never sloppy. I'm quite sure that, with enough patience, careful reading of his sentences will always clarify, not contradict, his argument (which is something you can't say for all philosophers, i.e. All the philosophers mentioned previously + more readable ones like Russell (see "On Denoting")). So, while getting through the text is an inevitably difficult endeavor, I cannot discourage anyone from doing so and "reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" instead.
Admittedly, the essay's structure isn't perfect, and the path leading to the enlightening end is all but windy. Sellars accumulates related observations, arguments, and distinctions, to then drop them to start a seemingly unrelated new strand. At times, it can be hard to understand what the essay is about at all; sometimes it seems about sense-data, sometimes about empiricism at large, sometimes about a more general concept of the "Myth of the Given"; it is seemingly purely about epistemology in the beginning, but also about language, history of philosophy, and science (and where is the "Philosophy of Mind" aspect tauted in the title?); many times it can be hard to discern what Sellars's viewpoint even is and whether he is expounding a theory to defend it or to tear it down. While individual passages do qualify for stimulating philosophical nuggets in themselves, as a reading experience it can be quite disorienting.
But Sellars manages to tie everything together into his epic ending, recounting the "Myth of Jones". Part of me doesn't want to spoil it too much, since it came as such a pleasant surprise to me. Suffice to say, it presents an alternative account of perception and mentalistic phenomena, where to say "I have an impression of red" is not a) indubitable b) epistemologically foundational and c) partly private / dismissive of common-sense mentalistic phenomena as traditional logical empiricists / Ryle (and, to an extent, philosophers in the modern period leading up to, and perhaps including, Kant). Instead, Sellars offers an alternative view through the narration of the story of Jones, which draws on all the considerations made previously and the domains they are a part of. It is a spectacular exception in analytic philosophy, one shunning careful considerations of minor scope and favoring a true account of "man- (person-) in-the-world".
The effect is a haunting one. To be fair, I don't know if the "Myth of Jones" is an accurate replacement for the "Myth of the Given". But I am excited by Sellars's willingness not only to dismiss a past theory for its insufficiencies, but also to provide a substantive alternative, in an attempt which I feel few other giants of analytic philosophy (I'm looking at you, Kripke and Quine) have tried in their greatest statements. And I'm also shocked by his employment of many of the same categories and ideas of his fellow analytic philosophers (ordinary language, logic, a general preference for nominalism, a disregard for actual history) to undermine the very claims that made theories of analytic philosophy popular in the first place. It almost makes me wonder if, had Sellars been present at the inception of logical empiricism as opposed to Ayer, the history of analytic philosophy would have unfolded differently, perhaps avoiding some of its original sins.
I will say, however, that Sellars is unkind to those untrained in previous analytic philosophy, or for that matter, all philosophy. Read your Carnap, your Ayer, your Wittgenstein. Read your Descartes, your Locke, your Hume. Your Kant. Read Sellars.
But first a note on Sellars's style. While I do believe, like other reviewers, that Sellars's prose in undoubtedly difficult, I think it is by no means bad. It is a strange style, borne out of the conciseness of his contemporaries, the oddity of some of the most recent Teutonic thinkers he caters to (Carnap, Wittgenstein) and the heaviness of the elder Germans whose shoulders he rests on (Kant and Hegel). But, despite having to read most sentences more than once, I can't say it's a bad style. It's weighty, yet not verbose; concise and not dull; strange yet never sloppy. I'm quite sure that, with enough patience, careful reading of his sentences will always clarify, not contradict, his argument (which is something you can't say for all philosophers, i.e. All the philosophers mentioned previously + more readable ones like Russell (see "On Denoting")). So, while getting through the text is an inevitably difficult endeavor, I cannot discourage anyone from doing so and "reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" instead.
Admittedly, the essay's structure isn't perfect, and the path leading to the enlightening end is all but windy. Sellars accumulates related observations, arguments, and distinctions, to then drop them to start a seemingly unrelated new strand. At times, it can be hard to understand what the essay is about at all; sometimes it seems about sense-data, sometimes about empiricism at large, sometimes about a more general concept of the "Myth of the Given"; it is seemingly purely about epistemology in the beginning, but also about language, history of philosophy, and science (and where is the "Philosophy of Mind" aspect tauted in the title?); many times it can be hard to discern what Sellars's viewpoint even is and whether he is expounding a theory to defend it or to tear it down. While individual passages do qualify for stimulating philosophical nuggets in themselves, as a reading experience it can be quite disorienting.
But Sellars manages to tie everything together into his epic ending, recounting the "Myth of Jones". Part of me doesn't want to spoil it too much, since it came as such a pleasant surprise to me. Suffice to say, it presents an alternative account of perception and mentalistic phenomena, where to say "I have an impression of red" is not a) indubitable b) epistemologically foundational and c) partly private / dismissive of common-sense mentalistic phenomena as traditional logical empiricists / Ryle (and, to an extent, philosophers in the modern period leading up to, and perhaps including, Kant). Instead, Sellars offers an alternative view through the narration of the story of Jones, which draws on all the considerations made previously and the domains they are a part of. It is a spectacular exception in analytic philosophy, one shunning careful considerations of minor scope and favoring a true account of "man- (person-) in-the-world".
The effect is a haunting one. To be fair, I don't know if the "Myth of Jones" is an accurate replacement for the "Myth of the Given". But I am excited by Sellars's willingness not only to dismiss a past theory for its insufficiencies, but also to provide a substantive alternative, in an attempt which I feel few other giants of analytic philosophy (I'm looking at you, Kripke and Quine) have tried in their greatest statements. And I'm also shocked by his employment of many of the same categories and ideas of his fellow analytic philosophers (ordinary language, logic, a general preference for nominalism, a disregard for actual history) to undermine the very claims that made theories of analytic philosophy popular in the first place. It almost makes me wonder if, had Sellars been present at the inception of logical empiricism as opposed to Ayer, the history of analytic philosophy would have unfolded differently, perhaps avoiding some of its original sins.
I will say, however, that Sellars is unkind to those untrained in previous analytic philosophy, or for that matter, all philosophy. Read your Carnap, your Ayer, your Wittgenstein. Read your Descartes, your Locke, your Hume. Your Kant. Read Sellars.
April 10, 2023
Read analytical philosophy they said, it's very clearly written they said,
Jokes aside Sellars packs a punch with hardcore dense writing
Jokes aside Sellars packs a punch with hardcore dense writing
March 3, 2015
I carried away from this text as an undergraduate the conclusion that whereas analytic philosophy historically wants to divide statements between the descriptive and the normative (with only the former capable of having a truth value), sellars implodes the distinction by noting that for any alleged descriptive statement claiming a truth value, it rests upon a normative foundation to the extent that the person making the statement has surveyed the evidence in support of the statement and concluded that the evidence is "good enough" to warrant the conclusion that the statement is true--which is to say that the truth-laden description is something of an illusion.
lots more in this text, but that impressed me as a kid who loved moore, ayer, russell, wittgenstein, quine, and others in the anglo tradition.
lots more in this text, but that impressed me as a kid who loved moore, ayer, russell, wittgenstein, quine, and others in the anglo tradition.
April 27, 2018
An important argument that, if it were more widely understood, could go a long way to ending the continuing tyrrany of the mistaken theory of empiricism. Sellars makes an important step toward dissolving the perennial problems of free will and the mind-body divide.
Unfortunately, as other reviewers have noted, he’s not a very good writer, and it takes patience to sort through his obscue prose. To make this argument more clearly, it would likely have to be about twice as long—but it would probalby be worth doing it considering that over half a century after it was written most people are still making the mistakes he points out.
Unfortunately, as other reviewers have noted, he’s not a very good writer, and it takes patience to sort through his obscue prose. To make this argument more clearly, it would likely have to be about twice as long—but it would probalby be worth doing it considering that over half a century after it was written most people are still making the mistakes he points out.
April 7, 2020
Really brilliant work. Hard to know exactly what he's saying at many points, but Brandom's study guide at the end is helpful. Integrates Wittgenstein's insights on private languages with broader philosophy of science considerations about theory/observation, and spells out the epistemological implications. The final 20 pages or so where he systematically develops his account of how inner talk would arise is marvelous. I'm inclined to agree with most of Sellars conclusions, but I do want to read more about criticisms and do have a number of lingering questions myself. E.g: does Sellars conclusion end up depending on the results of development psychology, or can it stand on purely conceptual ground? How rigid are his epistemic/non-epistemic and inferential/non-inferential divisions, and are they subject to Quinean criticisms? What does a more naturalistic account of inner states look like? (see Millikan). What is the response of the foundationalist? Need to do a lot more thinking to properly fit his thinking within contemporary cog sci/phil of mind debates (feel like it reflects on qualia, representation, and other debates, but need to work out details). Look forward to engaging with more of his work soon.
April 23, 2017
Very opaque, but with Brandom's help, also very satisfying for the reader who values both science and folk accounts of existence, and sees the two as part of the same fallible and noble attempt.
October 14, 2024
Me reactivó el resorte kantiano. La guía de estudio de Bob es realmente útil.
December 25, 2022
Sellars escribe fatal pero es muy pero que muy agudo
September 9, 2025
“I have used a myth to kill a myth—the Myth of the Given. But is my myth really a myth? Or does the reader not recognize Jones as Man himself in the middle of his journey from the grunts and groans of the cave to the subtle and polydimensional discourse of the drawing room, the laboratory, and the study, the language of Henry and William James, of Einstein and of the philosophers who, in their efforts to break out of discourse to an arché beyond discourse, have provided the most curious dimension of all.”
June 10, 2025
Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind ist sicherlich ein Werk von Genie und auch deshalb wohl einer der schwersten philosophischen Texte, die ich gelesen habe. Sellars gleicht einen Puzzlespieler, der ein schwieriges Puzzle zu lösen verspricht, dann aber nach dem er ein paar Stücke zusammengeschoben hat, ein anderes zu Hand nimmt und das iterativ wiederholt bis er von ein Haufen von unterschiedlichen Teilen unterschiedlicher Puzzles steht und es erscheint geradezu magisch, dass Sellars schließlich das erwünschte Bild aus Teilen aller Puzzles zusammen gezimmert zu haben mit einer Zusammengezimmerten Rand, der auf sehr vieles weitere hinausweist.
Eine Art der Beweisführung, die an die Mühevollen Beweise mancher Mathematiker, die durch ein Wald voller Lemmata erinnern, die man erstmal durchschreiten muss um zum Theorem zugegangen und in denen man sich Ballzugern vergisst. Dennoch haben diese Arten von Beweisen auch etwas mit Sellars Werk gemeinsames für sich. Sie bieten einen Schatz an Ausgangspunkten für spätere Mathematiker oder Philosophen.
Dennoch setzt sich manches erst spät zusammen, bei mir war es vor allem Sellars Erklärung, dass „Now the idea that epistemic facts can be analyzed without remainder -- even "in principle " -- into non-epistemic facts, whether phenomenological or behavioral, public or private, with no matter how lavish a sprinkling of subjunctives and hypotheticals is, I believe, a radical mistake -- a mistake of a piece with the so-called "naturalistic fallacy" in ethics.“
Der Sellars-Experte den ich darauf ansprach, meinte dies sei eine Art anormaler Monismus.
Ich bin jedoch nicht davon überzeugt, dass zumindest innerhalb des Werkes ein Anomaler Monismus vorliegt. Und ich denke dies würde auch so wenig lösen wie der Indeterminismus im Bezug auf das Problem des Freien Willens.
(Normative Sätze wird im folgenden Sätze über den Beschreibungsraum heißen in dem normative Beschreibungen benutzt werden, das heißt die normative Sätze referenzieren, nicht umbedingt an sich normative Sätze, „Wie du sollst nicht töten“)
Das moderne Problem des freien Willen wie es spätestens seit Kant ausformuliert ist, fragt ebenso danach, wie, wenn alles kausal naturalistisch bestimmt ist, wir gleichzeitig die Vernunft, dass heißt durch normative Ursachen zu unseren Handlung zu motiviert werden können. In dieser Formulierung ist aber ganz offensichtlich, dass Indeterminismus eben nicht diese zweite Kausalität bietet. Ob es Psychophysical Laws gibt/nicht gibt ist da nebensächlich. Anormaler Monismus gibt höchstens mehr Freiheiten das Bild des normativen Handelns weit unabhängiger vom Scientific Image zu zeichnen.
Schlussendlich übersehen jene, die den Determinismus (von mentalen von physischen) wegen der Ansicht verdammen, das dann keine Begründeten Urteile fällen könnten, das das "die Welt ist so das wir rational urteilen (können)" ein Fakt ist, den man selbst nicht entkommen kann (Es ist der stets zu befürchtende Cartesische Dämon).
Weiterhin bestände ein Problem mit den unterschiedlichen Räumen. Wir glauben zwar, dass man nicht von Sätzen der Ethik auf Sätze der natürlichen Existenz schließen kann, trotzdem müssen die Sätze der Ethik auf Naturalistischen supervinieren (Angenommen es gibt nur die beiden), da wir behaupten würden, dass in ein und derselben möglichen Welt, die selben ethischen Sätze gelten müssen. Sowie bei ethischen Sätzen müssen wir auch im Bezug auf die Beschreibung unserer normativen Verhältnisse, die Gesetze nach dem die die normativen Sätze im Bezug auf die naturalistische ändern, diese a priori verorten, denn sind sie nicht a priori so sind sie Teil einer physikalischen Beschreibung (via Naturalismus) und das Spiel nach dem Verhältnis fängt von vorne an, sowie wir sagen müssen, wenn eine Beschreibung in völlig naturalistischen Begriffen erbracht werden kann und die Übersetzung in völlig naturalistischen Begriffen erbracht werden kann, wir eigentlich bereits eine Analyse der normativen Sätze im Naturalismus erbracht haben. Wenn die Regeln aber notwenig sind, so folgt daraus eine gewisse Symmetrie zwischen möglichen Welten. Es ließe sich eine strikter Determinismus zwischen beiden Bildern finden.
Die Möglichkeit eines Anormalen Monismus macht dies natürlich erstmal nicht zu Nichte, da nicht garantiert ist, dass Mental-Type und Physical-Type strikt miteinander Korrelieren fast man sie nicht zu weit. (Freilich bringt das Probleme mit sich, denn wenn die Beziehung notwenig sein soll, dann sollte sie keine Regel sein, die unter willkürlicher Koordinatenwahl nicht invariant arbeitet, dass wenn wir links und Rechts vertauschen würden, die Type-Token-Beziehung wechselt dürfte nicht sein und die ganzen Arten von Symmetrien die alleine dadurch in Kombination mit den Ausschluss von Zufall in möglichen Welten entstehen ist bereits beachtlich und lässt es unplausibel wirken, dass die dahinterliegende Regel eine hohe Komologorovkomplexität hat und lässt Fragen, was dann überhaupt noch übrig bleibt.
Ich wäre so beispielsweise gezwungen in einem Universum mit zwei Menschen mit den selben physischen Zustand, die in Unterschiedlichen Raumrichtungen stehen, ihnen den selben Zustand zuzuschreiben. Und schlussendlich wäre noch problematisch, dass das Gedankengebäude das man hier gebaut hat, gerade anfällig für Skeptizismus machen würde, wenn Physis und Psychis so weit von einander entfernt wären, wo, um McDowell zu bemühen, ist dann die Reibung und die Berechtigung einer Intentionalität. Viele weitere Argumente lasse ich jetzt erstmal unter den Tisch, aber ich wollte nicht den Anormalen Monismus als solchen angreifen, sondern argumentieren er wäre nicht in dieser sellarsianischen Version plausibel. Was denkt Sellars also dann? Recht einfach: Dass Begriffe wie "Sollen" eben nicht naturalistisch aufgelöst werden können.
Ein normativer Zustand wie "etwas wissen", hat nach meiner bisherigen Argumentation eine physikalische Repräsentation in Folge von der Auflistung solcher Zustände, wegen der begründeten Regelmäßigkeit noch nicht mal eine unregelmäßige. Jedoch umfasst das eben nicht den Sinn des Wortes. Würde ich jemanden die Beschreibung geben, von dem welche physikalischen Zustände den Zustand entsprechen, etwas trinken zu sollen und er wäre in einen der solchen Zustände, würde es ihm nicht zum trinken bringen oder dazu einzusehen, er solle es tun, selbst mit höchster Intelligenz.
Nein, er bräuchte dazu gerade die normative Sätze. Zu Vergleichen ist dies abermals mit den Natürlichen Fehlschluss. Wie bereist gesagt supervisiert die Ethik auf die Welt, ich könnte also eine komplette Beschreibung der Welt geben, ich würde trotzdem keine ethischen Verpflichtungen einsehen. Der Naturalistische Fehlschluss ist ohne die rechtfertigenden Sätze in der Ethik zu beachten, rein auf sie von der Natur raus zu schließen, das selbe machen wir bei Sellars wir schließen auf etwas im Raum der Gründe ohne die Lage in Raum der Gründe zu betrachten. Aber eben nicht, dass die Beziehung zwischen ihnen unterdeterminiert ist. Sie ist es, aber nur unter der Zuhilfenahme nicht Naturwissenschaftlicher Sätze, die aber an sich a priori gegeben und nicht akzidentelle Eigenschaften des Manifesten Bildes sind.
Eine Art der Beweisführung, die an die Mühevollen Beweise mancher Mathematiker, die durch ein Wald voller Lemmata erinnern, die man erstmal durchschreiten muss um zum Theorem zugegangen und in denen man sich Ballzugern vergisst. Dennoch haben diese Arten von Beweisen auch etwas mit Sellars Werk gemeinsames für sich. Sie bieten einen Schatz an Ausgangspunkten für spätere Mathematiker oder Philosophen.
Dennoch setzt sich manches erst spät zusammen, bei mir war es vor allem Sellars Erklärung, dass „Now the idea that epistemic facts can be analyzed without remainder -- even "in principle " -- into non-epistemic facts, whether phenomenological or behavioral, public or private, with no matter how lavish a sprinkling of subjunctives and hypotheticals is, I believe, a radical mistake -- a mistake of a piece with the so-called "naturalistic fallacy" in ethics.“
Der Sellars-Experte den ich darauf ansprach, meinte dies sei eine Art anormaler Monismus.
Ich bin jedoch nicht davon überzeugt, dass zumindest innerhalb des Werkes ein Anomaler Monismus vorliegt. Und ich denke dies würde auch so wenig lösen wie der Indeterminismus im Bezug auf das Problem des Freien Willens.
(Normative Sätze wird im folgenden Sätze über den Beschreibungsraum heißen in dem normative Beschreibungen benutzt werden, das heißt die normative Sätze referenzieren, nicht umbedingt an sich normative Sätze, „Wie du sollst nicht töten“)
Das moderne Problem des freien Willen wie es spätestens seit Kant ausformuliert ist, fragt ebenso danach, wie, wenn alles kausal naturalistisch bestimmt ist, wir gleichzeitig die Vernunft, dass heißt durch normative Ursachen zu unseren Handlung zu motiviert werden können. In dieser Formulierung ist aber ganz offensichtlich, dass Indeterminismus eben nicht diese zweite Kausalität bietet. Ob es Psychophysical Laws gibt/nicht gibt ist da nebensächlich. Anormaler Monismus gibt höchstens mehr Freiheiten das Bild des normativen Handelns weit unabhängiger vom Scientific Image zu zeichnen.
Schlussendlich übersehen jene, die den Determinismus (von mentalen von physischen) wegen der Ansicht verdammen, das dann keine Begründeten Urteile fällen könnten, das das "die Welt ist so das wir rational urteilen (können)" ein Fakt ist, den man selbst nicht entkommen kann (Es ist der stets zu befürchtende Cartesische Dämon).
Weiterhin bestände ein Problem mit den unterschiedlichen Räumen. Wir glauben zwar, dass man nicht von Sätzen der Ethik auf Sätze der natürlichen Existenz schließen kann, trotzdem müssen die Sätze der Ethik auf Naturalistischen supervinieren (Angenommen es gibt nur die beiden), da wir behaupten würden, dass in ein und derselben möglichen Welt, die selben ethischen Sätze gelten müssen. Sowie bei ethischen Sätzen müssen wir auch im Bezug auf die Beschreibung unserer normativen Verhältnisse, die Gesetze nach dem die die normativen Sätze im Bezug auf die naturalistische ändern, diese a priori verorten, denn sind sie nicht a priori so sind sie Teil einer physikalischen Beschreibung (via Naturalismus) und das Spiel nach dem Verhältnis fängt von vorne an, sowie wir sagen müssen, wenn eine Beschreibung in völlig naturalistischen Begriffen erbracht werden kann und die Übersetzung in völlig naturalistischen Begriffen erbracht werden kann, wir eigentlich bereits eine Analyse der normativen Sätze im Naturalismus erbracht haben. Wenn die Regeln aber notwenig sind, so folgt daraus eine gewisse Symmetrie zwischen möglichen Welten. Es ließe sich eine strikter Determinismus zwischen beiden Bildern finden.
Die Möglichkeit eines Anormalen Monismus macht dies natürlich erstmal nicht zu Nichte, da nicht garantiert ist, dass Mental-Type und Physical-Type strikt miteinander Korrelieren fast man sie nicht zu weit. (Freilich bringt das Probleme mit sich, denn wenn die Beziehung notwenig sein soll, dann sollte sie keine Regel sein, die unter willkürlicher Koordinatenwahl nicht invariant arbeitet, dass wenn wir links und Rechts vertauschen würden, die Type-Token-Beziehung wechselt dürfte nicht sein und die ganzen Arten von Symmetrien die alleine dadurch in Kombination mit den Ausschluss von Zufall in möglichen Welten entstehen ist bereits beachtlich und lässt es unplausibel wirken, dass die dahinterliegende Regel eine hohe Komologorovkomplexität hat und lässt Fragen, was dann überhaupt noch übrig bleibt.
Ich wäre so beispielsweise gezwungen in einem Universum mit zwei Menschen mit den selben physischen Zustand, die in Unterschiedlichen Raumrichtungen stehen, ihnen den selben Zustand zuzuschreiben. Und schlussendlich wäre noch problematisch, dass das Gedankengebäude das man hier gebaut hat, gerade anfällig für Skeptizismus machen würde, wenn Physis und Psychis so weit von einander entfernt wären, wo, um McDowell zu bemühen, ist dann die Reibung und die Berechtigung einer Intentionalität. Viele weitere Argumente lasse ich jetzt erstmal unter den Tisch, aber ich wollte nicht den Anormalen Monismus als solchen angreifen, sondern argumentieren er wäre nicht in dieser sellarsianischen Version plausibel. Was denkt Sellars also dann? Recht einfach: Dass Begriffe wie "Sollen" eben nicht naturalistisch aufgelöst werden können.
Ein normativer Zustand wie "etwas wissen", hat nach meiner bisherigen Argumentation eine physikalische Repräsentation in Folge von der Auflistung solcher Zustände, wegen der begründeten Regelmäßigkeit noch nicht mal eine unregelmäßige. Jedoch umfasst das eben nicht den Sinn des Wortes. Würde ich jemanden die Beschreibung geben, von dem welche physikalischen Zustände den Zustand entsprechen, etwas trinken zu sollen und er wäre in einen der solchen Zustände, würde es ihm nicht zum trinken bringen oder dazu einzusehen, er solle es tun, selbst mit höchster Intelligenz.
Nein, er bräuchte dazu gerade die normative Sätze. Zu Vergleichen ist dies abermals mit den Natürlichen Fehlschluss. Wie bereist gesagt supervisiert die Ethik auf die Welt, ich könnte also eine komplette Beschreibung der Welt geben, ich würde trotzdem keine ethischen Verpflichtungen einsehen. Der Naturalistische Fehlschluss ist ohne die rechtfertigenden Sätze in der Ethik zu beachten, rein auf sie von der Natur raus zu schließen, das selbe machen wir bei Sellars wir schließen auf etwas im Raum der Gründe ohne die Lage in Raum der Gründe zu betrachten. Aber eben nicht, dass die Beziehung zwischen ihnen unterdeterminiert ist. Sie ist es, aber nur unter der Zuhilfenahme nicht Naturwissenschaftlicher Sätze, die aber an sich a priori gegeben und nicht akzidentelle Eigenschaften des Manifesten Bildes sind.
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February 3, 2022Es un libro duro de esos que leo sabiendo que no me voy a enterar de casi nada para luego leerlo un tiempo después y enterarme mucho más. Eso sí, en este caso ayuda mucho la guía de lectura de Robert Brandom, que permite comprender en mucho más detalle cosas que solo leyendo el texto, que no es fácil, se me habrían pasado.
En cualquier caso, es una obra de grandísimo valor y muy importante para abordar algunos de los debates epistemológicos más relevantes de los años 60 en adelante, aun hoy. Por ello, tendré que releerlo y empaparme de él para seguir profundizando en esta línea.
En cualquier caso, es una obra de grandísimo valor y muy importante para abordar algunos de los debates epistemológicos más relevantes de los años 60 en adelante, aun hoy. Por ello, tendré que releerlo y empaparme de él para seguir profundizando en esta línea.
January 7, 2012
Fantastic ideas on empiricism and how we experience the world, but could have been more clearly written. Most philosophers seem to share this assessment.
March 21, 2019
That was extremely hard to read and I am really happy that I finally got something, anything from it. The included study guide helped a lot, but I still had to read it many many times. The material is extremely dense, it goes against our most basic intuitions and Sellars is terrible at helping you understand what he is writing. He lays the foundations for what he will cover eventually but you are left puzzled at why is he writing this now.
The claim is not that complicated. I really wish I could have read this and the next paragraph before reading it, even if what I 'll write is simplified or even wrong. Sellars thinks that knowledge consists of two things. First, of having reliable differential dispositions (which is something that we share with babies, animals and things (thermometers for example)) and second, of being able to understand that you have this reliable disposition. It's to enter “the logical space of reasons”, the game of giving reasons for what you claim. This is completely different from our traditional account according to which we get knowledge from our senses. For Sellars we can only get beliefs (knowledge) from other beliefs. The idea that sense contents provide the foundations for our beliefs is to fall prey to the myth of the given. To be able to get concepts (knowledge) from sense contents you need to have concepts already and you get concepts by entering the game of giving reasons, later in life, from your peers. This is the basic claim.
But now Sellars has to answer how do our peers originally got the concepts since it wasn't from senses. He answers this by making up the myth of Jones. The myth shows how thoughts can be postulated to explain overt behavior by crating a theory that models them in language. Jones basically theorizes that since his peers behave intelligently even when they don't talk, they have inner speech. This means that language comes before thoughts (no thoughts without language), even though after having thoughts you think before talking. But Sellars doesn't say that we didn't have thoughts before discovering them. The point is not that we don't have thoughts or sensations, it's that they are not given, it's that we don't have immediate access to them. After having thoughts, Jones can make another theory to get sense impressions, this time to explain the cause of their new found perceptions. Jones thinks: what is the cause of me believing that something is red? Because the red object gives me a red impression. That is his next theory and it is modeled on pictures, of replicas of what is out there. That's how we discover senses and they are direct. The replica is the red thing, not me seeing a red thing. And the myth of the given is thinking that these replicas are the objects themselves and thus fit for knowledge claims.
I am extremely attracted to this idea but for now, I suspect it is because I am attracted to pragmatism, relativism, nihilism and all that. But I think this second guessing of what I like can be thought as evidence against the given, even if it is limited to psychological notions. What is certain is that Sellars is an extremely important thinker, if not the most important of the last half of the century. Even though he is not really a fan of those dark -isms I mentioned since he finds other ways to build foundations, he does open the door for them (see Rorty for example). In any case, I have only scratched the surface so I won't try to evaluate or discuss its implications yet.
Also note that everything I have written is heavily based on Brandom's study guide who belongs in the pragmatism tradition. There are other readings of Sellars, Mcdowell's for example.
The claim is not that complicated. I really wish I could have read this and the next paragraph before reading it, even if what I 'll write is simplified or even wrong. Sellars thinks that knowledge consists of two things. First, of having reliable differential dispositions (which is something that we share with babies, animals and things (thermometers for example)) and second, of being able to understand that you have this reliable disposition. It's to enter “the logical space of reasons”, the game of giving reasons for what you claim. This is completely different from our traditional account according to which we get knowledge from our senses. For Sellars we can only get beliefs (knowledge) from other beliefs. The idea that sense contents provide the foundations for our beliefs is to fall prey to the myth of the given. To be able to get concepts (knowledge) from sense contents you need to have concepts already and you get concepts by entering the game of giving reasons, later in life, from your peers. This is the basic claim.
But now Sellars has to answer how do our peers originally got the concepts since it wasn't from senses. He answers this by making up the myth of Jones. The myth shows how thoughts can be postulated to explain overt behavior by crating a theory that models them in language. Jones basically theorizes that since his peers behave intelligently even when they don't talk, they have inner speech. This means that language comes before thoughts (no thoughts without language), even though after having thoughts you think before talking. But Sellars doesn't say that we didn't have thoughts before discovering them. The point is not that we don't have thoughts or sensations, it's that they are not given, it's that we don't have immediate access to them. After having thoughts, Jones can make another theory to get sense impressions, this time to explain the cause of their new found perceptions. Jones thinks: what is the cause of me believing that something is red? Because the red object gives me a red impression. That is his next theory and it is modeled on pictures, of replicas of what is out there. That's how we discover senses and they are direct. The replica is the red thing, not me seeing a red thing. And the myth of the given is thinking that these replicas are the objects themselves and thus fit for knowledge claims.
I am extremely attracted to this idea but for now, I suspect it is because I am attracted to pragmatism, relativism, nihilism and all that. But I think this second guessing of what I like can be thought as evidence against the given, even if it is limited to psychological notions. What is certain is that Sellars is an extremely important thinker, if not the most important of the last half of the century. Even though he is not really a fan of those dark -isms I mentioned since he finds other ways to build foundations, he does open the door for them (see Rorty for example). In any case, I have only scratched the surface so I won't try to evaluate or discuss its implications yet.
Also note that everything I have written is heavily based on Brandom's study guide who belongs in the pragmatism tradition. There are other readings of Sellars, Mcdowell's for example.
May 18, 2024
Read sections I, II, III & VIII for an assignment.
Thoughts in no particular order:
1. Givenness being given - Very interesting consideration. But what if I denied this and instead claimed that givenness is not in fact evident? Wouldn't I then be turning the un-givenness of givenness into an axiomatic foundation upon which to construct a theoretical system aimed at disproving the givenness of givenness? And wouldn't that be a tacit assertion of the fact that, as far as practical reason is concerned, givenness is a necessity? Same issue as when, with Heraclitus's "all is flux", the "thisness" of "being-flux" is abstracted from impermanence and fixed in place (staticized) outside of it.
2. Can there be such a thing as a "framework of un-givenness"? Or is this a contradiction? Isn't the very notion of "framework" isomorphic with the laying of foundations of givenness? Granted, according to arbitrary criteria - what's given to us is not imbued with independent, out-standing subsistence. And yet, in the moment we instantiate givenness into the world, on what (immanent) grounds can it be said to be a myth?
3. Do sense-datum theorists want to treat sense contents as both elementarily simple yet knowledge-constituting? For maybe the assumption which causes friction is that the notion of the epistemic atom, so to speak, is a loaded characterization which can only be effected in view of a specific presuppositional basis - namely, that knowledge is essentially an emergent property of the synergistic interplay between a multiplicity of irreducible particulars. Yet, where does this interpretation of knowledge come from? And how warranted is it? Sellars himself appears to be arguing against the reduction of epistemic facts to a network of interrelations between non-epistemic facts. Meaning, he appears to be opposing the notion that meaning is an emergent property of meaninglessness, once a certain degree of combinatorial complexity has been reached.
4. All observation / ascertainment as envisioned to be occurring within a framework of correspondence rests on the assumption that, say, "triangularity" (as in the example of the "red and triangular physical object" used by Sellars) is a universal notion which allows for no contextual modulation. More mundanely, it also rests on the assumption that people are not lying either to themselves or to others when reporting inner experiences.
5. Isn't Sellars' "relevant criterion of sameness" an implicit form of knowledge which is required in order for the fact-stating sentence to be interpretable as meaningful? This would be circumvented if fact-stating began and ended with the subject who utters the sentence, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
6. Observation-reports resemble analytic propositions in that they are paraphrases of given states of affairs - they are, in essence, a re-stating, re-presentation of them, and as such open up no opportunity for further synthesis. Yet in this view, the boundaries which must be assumed to exist between inner and outer world are blurred, as the state of affairs which a particular observation refers to does not occur within the subject who authors the statement - This implies that the assumed-to-be-external circumstance is first subjected to pre-interpretation, and only then is a tautology crafted as to reflect its inferred "essence".
7. The expression, considered as action, bears authority in proportion to the degree to which it abides by an implicit rule and to the degree of accuracy with which it simultaneously describes the state of affairs under consideration. Needless to say, a pre-interpretation of such state of affairs needs to be in place to serve as the benchmark for the assessment of the fact-stating sentence as being either accurate (i.e. conformant with the pre-interpretation) or inaccurate (i.e. non-conformant with the pre-interpretation).
8. The fact-statement "This is green" needs to comply with standards which are external to the observational moment individually-considered, namely the frequency of accurate correspondence between it-as-token and the particular genus of "state-of-affair-dom" which it is meant to be a token of. But where does the authority of Correspondence stem from? Is it warranted to hypostasize it in this manner - similarly to how Plato hypostasizes Participation in his theory of Forms?
Thoughts in no particular order:
1. Givenness being given - Very interesting consideration. But what if I denied this and instead claimed that givenness is not in fact evident? Wouldn't I then be turning the un-givenness of givenness into an axiomatic foundation upon which to construct a theoretical system aimed at disproving the givenness of givenness? And wouldn't that be a tacit assertion of the fact that, as far as practical reason is concerned, givenness is a necessity? Same issue as when, with Heraclitus's "all is flux", the "thisness" of "being-flux" is abstracted from impermanence and fixed in place (staticized) outside of it.
2. Can there be such a thing as a "framework of un-givenness"? Or is this a contradiction? Isn't the very notion of "framework" isomorphic with the laying of foundations of givenness? Granted, according to arbitrary criteria - what's given to us is not imbued with independent, out-standing subsistence. And yet, in the moment we instantiate givenness into the world, on what (immanent) grounds can it be said to be a myth?
3. Do sense-datum theorists want to treat sense contents as both elementarily simple yet knowledge-constituting? For maybe the assumption which causes friction is that the notion of the epistemic atom, so to speak, is a loaded characterization which can only be effected in view of a specific presuppositional basis - namely, that knowledge is essentially an emergent property of the synergistic interplay between a multiplicity of irreducible particulars. Yet, where does this interpretation of knowledge come from? And how warranted is it? Sellars himself appears to be arguing against the reduction of epistemic facts to a network of interrelations between non-epistemic facts. Meaning, he appears to be opposing the notion that meaning is an emergent property of meaninglessness, once a certain degree of combinatorial complexity has been reached.
4. All observation / ascertainment as envisioned to be occurring within a framework of correspondence rests on the assumption that, say, "triangularity" (as in the example of the "red and triangular physical object" used by Sellars) is a universal notion which allows for no contextual modulation. More mundanely, it also rests on the assumption that people are not lying either to themselves or to others when reporting inner experiences.
5. Isn't Sellars' "relevant criterion of sameness" an implicit form of knowledge which is required in order for the fact-stating sentence to be interpretable as meaningful? This would be circumvented if fact-stating began and ended with the subject who utters the sentence, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
6. Observation-reports resemble analytic propositions in that they are paraphrases of given states of affairs - they are, in essence, a re-stating, re-presentation of them, and as such open up no opportunity for further synthesis. Yet in this view, the boundaries which must be assumed to exist between inner and outer world are blurred, as the state of affairs which a particular observation refers to does not occur within the subject who authors the statement - This implies that the assumed-to-be-external circumstance is first subjected to pre-interpretation, and only then is a tautology crafted as to reflect its inferred "essence".
7. The expression, considered as action, bears authority in proportion to the degree to which it abides by an implicit rule and to the degree of accuracy with which it simultaneously describes the state of affairs under consideration. Needless to say, a pre-interpretation of such state of affairs needs to be in place to serve as the benchmark for the assessment of the fact-stating sentence as being either accurate (i.e. conformant with the pre-interpretation) or inaccurate (i.e. non-conformant with the pre-interpretation).
8. The fact-statement "This is green" needs to comply with standards which are external to the observational moment individually-considered, namely the frequency of accurate correspondence between it-as-token and the particular genus of "state-of-affair-dom" which it is meant to be a token of. But where does the authority of Correspondence stem from? Is it warranted to hypostasize it in this manner - similarly to how Plato hypostasizes Participation in his theory of Forms?
December 28, 2022
Wilfrid Sellars is another member of the analytic camp who rides the border between "dense" and "completely unintelligible." Some sections of his essay, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, are almost physically painful to read. For example, take this monster of a sentence: "We have seen that the fact that a sense content is a datum (if, indeed, there are such facts) will logically imply that someone has non-inferential knowledge only if to say that a sense content is given is contextually defined in terms of non-inferential knowledge of a fact about this sense content." Uh, WTF? Do me a favor and repeat that, Wilfrid. Slowly, please.
Anyway coming back to reviewing the book:
Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind is a collection of essays written by a number of different philosophers who defend the empirical approach to understanding the mind and mental states. In addition to the editor, Wilfrid Sellars, the book includes essays by other influential philosophers such as Stuart Hampshire, John McDowell, and David Armstrong.
Stuart Hampshire is an English philosopher who is known for his contributions to the philosophy of mind and ethics. In his essay in the book, Hampshire discusses the implications of empiricism for our understanding of the nature of the mind and mental states.
John McDowell is a Welsh philosopher who is known for his work on the philosophy of mind and language. In his essay, McDowell discusses the relationship between the empirical approach to understanding the mind and the concept of "externalism," which is the idea that the mind is not confined to the individual but is instead shaped by the external world.
David Armstrong is an Australian philosopher who is known for his work on the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. In his essay, Armstrong discusses the implications of empiricism for our understanding of the nature of mental states and their relationship to the physical world.
In this collection of essays, the authors explore the implications of empiricism for our understanding of the mind and mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and emotions. They argue that mental states are determined by sensory experiences and that they can be studied and understood using the methods of empirical science.
Anyway coming back to reviewing the book:
Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind is a collection of essays written by a number of different philosophers who defend the empirical approach to understanding the mind and mental states. In addition to the editor, Wilfrid Sellars, the book includes essays by other influential philosophers such as Stuart Hampshire, John McDowell, and David Armstrong.
Stuart Hampshire is an English philosopher who is known for his contributions to the philosophy of mind and ethics. In his essay in the book, Hampshire discusses the implications of empiricism for our understanding of the nature of the mind and mental states.
John McDowell is a Welsh philosopher who is known for his work on the philosophy of mind and language. In his essay, McDowell discusses the relationship between the empirical approach to understanding the mind and the concept of "externalism," which is the idea that the mind is not confined to the individual but is instead shaped by the external world.
David Armstrong is an Australian philosopher who is known for his work on the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. In his essay, Armstrong discusses the implications of empiricism for our understanding of the nature of mental states and their relationship to the physical world.
In this collection of essays, the authors explore the implications of empiricism for our understanding of the mind and mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and emotions. They argue that mental states are determined by sensory experiences and that they can be studied and understood using the methods of empirical science.
January 28, 2023
Genius continuation of the empiricist tradition while effectively dispelling the Myth of the Given. This is a must-read for analytic philosophers. It is not as hard as it is made out to seem. It's a beautiful essay that goes against the grain of the entire history of empiricism and does so without a hiccup. The only flaw to the argument lies in his assumption that there is no non-inferential knowledge just because we give up the Given. Just because we are not taking something that is immediately given to us does not mean we cannot have foundationalism. Externalist theories of knowledge, for instance, allow for a kind of foundationalism, only an insecure non-Cartesian one. But a reliable foundation is not the same as having no foundation, which is the only real mistake I see in Sellars' argument.
What is real is not immediately given to us, but unless we are skeptics, we have to imagine that something like reality is given to us on a reliable basis, otherwise we simply could not survive. It seems that the turtle can nonetheless be made up of reliably formed beliefs, then, even if we concede all the premises Sellars starts out with.
But I am in full agreement that the sense data theorists were mistaken about perception, that they tried to find security where there was none, and so constructed a myth that was in desperate need of being dispelled. Sellars monumental achievement is in doing just that, and in the process changing empiricism for the better.
It's simply a brilliant essay.
What is real is not immediately given to us, but unless we are skeptics, we have to imagine that something like reality is given to us on a reliable basis, otherwise we simply could not survive. It seems that the turtle can nonetheless be made up of reliably formed beliefs, then, even if we concede all the premises Sellars starts out with.
But I am in full agreement that the sense data theorists were mistaken about perception, that they tried to find security where there was none, and so constructed a myth that was in desperate need of being dispelled. Sellars monumental achievement is in doing just that, and in the process changing empiricism for the better.
It's simply a brilliant essay.
May 19, 2021
Instead of coming to have a concept of something because we have noticed that sort of thing, to have the ability to notice a sort of thing is already to have the concept of that sort of thing, and cannot account for it.
Brandom's study guide almost brought me to the point of understanding Sellars, but Brandom himself is hard to follow. Maybe someday Harvard will publish a new edition with a study guide to Brandom's study guide so I can finally figure out how this is all supposed to work.
Brandom's study guide almost brought me to the point of understanding Sellars, but Brandom himself is hard to follow. Maybe someday Harvard will publish a new edition with a study guide to Brandom's study guide so I can finally figure out how this is all supposed to work.
August 28, 2022
As someone who had sex with Putnam’s semantic externalism as a teenager, the main upshot of the book viz. that the language/concepts used in (reports of) inner/private experience/sense impressions is built on intersubjective exchange didn’t turn out to be much of a shocker.
April 12, 2025
Wow. That Jones guy had some bright ideas, man.
August 14, 2025
Read it, not sure I understood it. Will require much more context.
May 31, 2025
He uses this grammar that you just don’t find much elsewhere that takes getting used to and will prompt not an insignificant number of sentence/paragraph rereads. But his main points are nothing short of dazzling and fascinating to a layman like myself.
27/05/2025
Finished a reread today. Understood it about 80% better. One of the best books I've ever read. Utterly fascinating. Just realised they misspelled Bob's name in the author list lol. Wish cosmic sceptic would read this so he could stop saying that scientists must ‘assume the existence of the external world’ to do science at all.
27/05/2025
Finished a reread today. Understood it about 80% better. One of the best books I've ever read. Utterly fascinating. Just realised they misspelled Bob's name in the author list lol. Wish cosmic sceptic would read this so he could stop saying that scientists must ‘assume the existence of the external world’ to do science at all.
March 31, 2010
really hard to sift through.
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June 28, 2011slogged through / presented about a third of it for first-year seminar. wonderful in its way.
February 10, 2016
Dificilísimo. Usar guía de lectura de Brandom. Aproximación pragmatista a la filosofía de la percepción. Gran influencia en la corriente de filosofía de Pittsburgh y en Rorty, hasta donde yo sé.
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February 17, 2016This little article shows the reader what's still possible for the analytic style of philosophy. In this convoluted quarrel is poetry.
January 20, 2017
Primeira leitura completa. Um livro difícil em muitos pontos, apesar do guia de estudo de Brandom.
July 7, 2019
É recomendável ler antes a Crítica da Razão Pura, e as Investigações filosóficas. Isso é apenas o mínimo.
Este livro é imprescindível para epistemologia, filosofia da mente.
Este livro é imprescindível para epistemologia, filosofia da mente.
July 13, 2022
Very mixed feelings on ole Wilfrid—doesn’t hold a candle to his inspirers (Kant especially) nor his inspirees (McDowell, Brandom, Rorty, even the right-Sellarsians)
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