Annotated bibliography part 2: on Wilfrid Sellars
1990a: Properties as Processes. A Synoptic Study in Wilfrid Sellars'
Nominalism, (Reseda: Ridgeview Pub. Co.).
The book traces Sellars' systematic denial of abstract and universal
entities in semantics, epistemology, and metaphysics. Part I presents Sellars'
interpretation of abstract expressions as interlinguistic functional classifications
(linguistic roles). It is argued that Sellars' role-semantic reduction is superior to
eliminating second order quantification, undercuts Quine's argument for the
indeterminacy of translation, and provides a naturalistic concept of intension
within a partly behaviorist, partly functionalist theory of the mental. Part II and
III explain the asemanticity of predicates in Sellars' picture theory of empirical
truth and show how his process ontology follows from integrating phenomenal
qualities into Peirceian scientific realism.
2000b: "Pure Processes and Projective Metaphysics," Philosophical Studies
101, 253-289.
There is a well-known tension within Sellars' scheme arising from
commitments to both an anti-foundationalist epistemology and a Peircean
scientific realism. This tension surfaces conspicuously in his treatment of
ontological category theory. On the one hand, Sellars applies and extends
Carnap's metalinguistic deflation of ontology. On the other hand, however,
Sellars is not prepared to 'go conventionalist' but upholds the possibility of a
"positive ontology" (Rosenberg). I offer a new reading of Sellars’ Carus Lectures
in which I combine two projects. First, I argue that Sellars provides us here with
the sketch of a method of ‘category projection’ which can be used, within the
setting of Sellars' scheme, to 'transcend from within' the limitations of category
theories developed in non-Peircean conceptual structures and to enable us nonPeirceans to make any justifiable descriptive claims about the structure of
reality. In the course of doing so I also offer a new reading of Sellars' Carus
Lectures, highlighting the systematic advantages that motivated Sellars to view a
process ontological interpretation of sensation
2000e: Wilfrid Sellars’ nominalistischer Naturalismus, Six essays with
introduction. (Contributors: R. Brandom, J. Rosenberg, H. Hochberg, D.
Bonevac, D. Sosa, C. Juhl). Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 48 (4), 595682.
For the journal’s “Special Discussion” unit I collect here, in German
translation, unpublished papers by renowned commentators on Sellars’ work,
presented at a recent conference. I briefly characterize the main components of
Sellars’ scheme and introduce the six contributions to follow: Robert Brandom’s
and Jay Rosenberg’s constructive expositions of Sellars’ epistemology and
philosophy of mind, challenged by their commentators David Sosa and Cory Juhl;
Daniel Bonevac’s critical investigation of the attack on the “myth of the given” ;
and Herbert Hochberg’s discussion of Sellars’ nominalist theory of predication.
2007
Wilfrid Sellars. Reihe Moderne Klassiker. Mentis Verlag.
The book offers a compact and accessible introduction in German to the
philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars, with special attention to links with contemporary
research in the philosophy of mind. Unlike other introductions to Sellars'
thought, the book works out in greater detail the process-ontological roots of
Sellars' naturalism.
2009 Functioning Between Reasons and Causes: On Picturing, in: W. de
Vries (ed.), Empiricism, Perceptual Knowledge, Normativity, and Realism,
Oxford University Press, pp. 247-283.
In EPM Sellars argues that mental contents as such cannot be caused,
rejecting the empiricist notion of mental representation. In Sellars’ view
perceivers causally “picture” their environment in perception: physical
processes are causally correlated with the perceiver’s neurophysiological
processes that exhibit certain functional relationships and thus can be attributed
content. This chapter argues that “picturing”, the link between the “causal order”
and the “logical space of reasons”, is best understood as non-linear processing in
orientation systems with emergent levels of functionality and normativity. First,
it is analyzed which process configurations “picture”, i.e., form an orientation
system for agent navigation that does not involve predication. Second, it is
discussed in which sense “pictured” items can be said to be real and Sellars’
transcendental argument for scientific realism is briefly reconstructed. In
conclusion “picturing” is related to recent work on natural functions and antirepresentational accounts of cognition.
Keywords: mental representation, function, normativity, perception, orientation,
predication, realism