RÉSUMÉRécemment, Anil Gupta a soulevé plusieurs objections importantes à l’encontre de la théorie de la perception de Wilfrid Sellars. Cet article se donne pour objectif de défendre la théorie de Sellars contre ces objections. J’admets que certains aspects de sa théorie posent problème. Il y a, par exemple, de bonnes raisons de rejeter la thèse de Sellars selon laquelle le référent ultime d’une saisie perceptive est une impression sensible. Néanmoins, je soutiens qu’une explication sellarsienne de la perception reste une approche (...) viable de la perception, en dépit des puissantes objections de Gupta. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs and defends a Sellarsian approach to “sensation” that allows us to avoid mythological conceptions of it. Part I reconstructs and isolates Sellars’s argument for “sensation,” situating his adverbial interpretation of the notion within his broader theory of perception. Part II positions Sellars’s views vis-à-vis current conversations on adverbalism. In particular, it focuses on the Many Property Problem, which is traditionally considered the main obstacle to adverbialism. After reconstructing Sellars’s response to this problem, I demonstrate that his position (...) is compatible with some current strategies to solving it and can be developed along similar lines. Finally, part III addresses how a Sellarsian adverbial approach productively accounts for the phenomenal properties of experience often understood to fall under the notion of “sensation”. The paper therefore shows how isolating Sellars’s argument can yield a non-problematic conception of sensation. Indeed, the argument on which I focus offers a form of direct realism compatible with recent forms of “new adverbialism”. Although my view remains Sellarsian, to defend it I maintain that some Sellarsian claims about sensation should be resisted as not logically entailed by his argument. (shrink)