From Formalism to Psychology: Metaphilosophical Shifts in Wilfrid Sellars’s Early Works

Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 6 (1):24-63 (2016)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

When discussing Wilfrid Sellars’s philosophy, very little work has been done to offer a developmental account of his systematic views. More often than not, Sellars’s complex views are presented in a systematic and holistic fashion that ignores any periodization of his work. I argue that there is a metaphilosophical shift in Sellars’s early philosophy that results in substantive changes to his conception of language, linguistic rules, and normativity. Specifically, I claim that Sellars’s shift from a formalist metaphilosophy to one more closely aligned with psychology allows for the construction of a normative conception of language. My central claim is that without his abandonment of earlier metaphilosophical commitments, Sellars could not hold what I call an external conception of normativity. It is this move away from a formalist notion of philosophy that allows Sellars to construct a normative picture of language. I conclude that because this substantive shift in philosophical commitments results from changes in Sellars’s metaphilosophical views, there is insight to be found in a meticulous periodization of his work.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The Middle Does Not Hold.William A. Rottschaefer - 2011 - Journal of Philosophical Research 36:361-369.
The Realist Challenge to Conceptual Pragmatism.Peter Olen - 2015 - European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 7 (2):152-167.
Action, knowledge, and reality.Wilfrid Sellars & Hector-Neri Castañeda (eds.) - 1975 - Indianapolis,: Bobbs-Merrill.
Normativity and Scientific Naturalism in Sellars’ ‘Janus‐Faced’ Space of Reasons.James R. O’Shea - 2010 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 18 (3):459-471.
Wilfrid Sellars.Willem deVries - 2011 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Analytics

Added to PP
2016-08-29

Downloads
51 (#276,368)

6 months
5 (#244,107)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Citations of this work

Was Sellars an error theorist?Peter Olen & Stephen Turner - 2016 - Synthese 193 (7):2053-2075.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Inference and meaning.Wilfrid Sellars - 1953 - Mind 62 (247):313-338.
Meaning and verification.Moritz Schlick - 1936 - Philosophical Review 45 (4):339-369.
Introduction to Semantics.Rudolf Carnap - 1942 - Philosophy of Science 9 (3):281-282.

View all 13 references / Add more references