Selected Study Questions for Final Exam:
Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind.
I. An Ambiguity in Sense-Datum Theories.
1.
How does Sellars propose that the sense-datum theorist might be able to “have her cake and eat it
too” here?
2.
Consider knowledge by acquaintance in its common sense form—how does it work, how does it
relate to knowledge of propositions, and do you think it really does illuminate the question of our
knowledge of sense contents? **
3.
Describe Sellars’ ‘mongrel’ hypothesis concerning the classical concept of a sense datum.
4.
Describe the epistemic argument and confusions Sellars presents as leading some philosophers to
take sense data to be the foundation of empirical knowledge.
II. Another Language?
5.
Why does Sellars introduce a discussion of ‘codes’ in his examination of Ayer’s proposal to treat
sense data talk as a mere alternative (philosophers’) language for “looks” talk?
6.
Why does Sellars think it’s so difficult to treat a code as merely a code.
7.
Discuss what Sellars means by the autonomy and the surplus value of theories. (138) **
8.
What does Sellars conclude about the consequences of taking sense data/content talk to be such a
code?
III. The Logic of ‘Looks’
9.
What is the most widespread form of the Myth of the Given?
10. How is the ‘red’ things look to have related to the red that some things actually are? (What about
the earlier remarks on ‘red’ sensations—are ‘red’ sensations or sense contents really red,
according to Sellars? What do you think?) **
11. What does Sellars mean by the ‘propositional content’ of an experience? How does whether we
endorse this content affect the reports we make when we have experiences with the same
propositional content?
12. Why is (X is red  X would look red to standard observers in standard conditions) a necessary
truth, according to Sellars?
IV. Explaining Looks.
13. What puzzles Sellars about the relation between the redness that things (physical objects) have, the
redness that they sometimes look to have, and the redness of sensations or sense contents?
14. What two sorts of explanation does Sellars consider as possible answers to questions like, ‘Why
does this object look red?’ (150)
15. What does Sellars mean by the ‘descriptive content’ of experiences (as opposed to their
propositional content)?
16. What is the question that (Sellars’ account of) ‘looks talk’ leads us to but provides no answer for?
V. Impressions and Ideas. A logical point.
17. What is the ‘ing/ed ambiguity’ of ‘experience’?
18. Why is having a predicate we can use to express the descriptive content of our experiences not
enough for Sellars? (154)
19. What is the logical feature Sellars attributes to the context ‘sensation of a red triangle’ that makes
it possible for there to be such a sensation without there being a red triangle?
20. What other sorts of contexts share this logical feature?
VI. Impressions and Ideas. A historical point.
21. How does the ‘given’ come into the account presented here (156-7) of our ability to ‘grasp’ the
descriptive content of our experiences?
22. What is Berkeley’s argument for the impossibility of a purely generic idea (i.e. an idea of the
genus that is not of any species of that genus)?
23. What ‘innate ability’ does Sellars tell us Locke, Berkeley and Hume all agreed the human mind
has?
VII. The logic of ‘means’
24. What is the ‘thermometer view’ of meaning (with respect to predicates like ‘red’ or ‘C#’)?
25. What is Sellars’ account of ‘the rubric ‘ “…” means ---’?
26. What does this imply about the potential complexity of what we need to know in order to
understand the meaning of a word like ‘red’?
VIII. Does Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?
27. What form of the myth is involved in the view that there is such a foundation?
28. What does ‘following a rule’ (when taken seriously) require regarding what brings the action in
question about? What does this imply about the idea that, in correctly reporting “This is green”,
we are following the rules for using these words?
29. How does Sellars adjust the “thermometer view” to provide a tenable alternative to this “following
the rules” view of observation reports?
30. How does Sellars escape the regress that threatens his account of the requirements for
observational knowledge? (What do you think of this move?)
IX. Science and Ordinary Usage.
31. What is Sellars’ reason here for supposing that the scientific description of the world should/can
supersede the ‘descriptive ontology of everyday life’?
32. What does Sellars mean by the ‘unchallengeable authenticity’ of the categories of the common
sense picture of the world? Does he endorse this authenticity?
33. How is the myth of the given related to this conception of science?
X.
Private Episodes: The Problem.
34. What are the two ways in which seeing something φ, seeing something that seems φ, and seeming
to see something φ, are all similar to each other as states of a perceiver?
35. What two sorts of explanation for the second similarity does Sellars raise here?
36. What are the two features of ‘inner episodes’ that make them so puzzling?
XI. Thoughts: The Classical View.
37. What are the two uses of sentences asserting such episodes’ occurrence that distinguish their
public and private characters?
38. What is the classical tradition’s claim here?
39. What are the confusions that Sellars wants to purge the classical view of?
XII.
Our Rylean Ancestors.
40. What is a ‘Rylean language’?
41. What does Sellars add to the Rylean language before he continues with his myth (or science
fiction)?
42. What is the alternative to a view that treats talk of thoughts as a kind of shorthand?
XIII.
Theories and Models.
43. What does a good theory do with respect to ‘established empirical laws’?
44. What sort of status is Sellars proposing for ‘inner episodes’ here?
45. What is the next ‘enrichment’ of the Rylean language here?
XIV.
Methdological vs. Philosophical Behaviourism.
46. What sort of behaviourist is Jones?
47. What is methodological behaviourism?
48. What does Sellars say is wrong with philosophical behaviourism?
XV.
The Logic of Private Episodes: Thoughts.
49. What is Jones’ theory (of thoughts)?
50. Is it open for us, later, to identify these thoughts with certain physiological goings-on? Explain.
**
51. What transition in the use of this theory makes the ‘theory’ more than just a theory?
52. What two apparently conflicting ideas does Sellars claim to have reconciled here?
XVI. The Logic of Private Episodes: Impressions.
53. What is an impression of a red triangle analogous to, on this theory? (What is essential to this
analogy?)
54. What is important about Jones’ being able to teach his fellows to make a reporting use of the
language of impressions? (See section XV above…)
55. How is it that this account of impressions gives us an ‘explanation of, and not just a code for, such
facts as that there looks to me to be a red and triangular physical object over there’?