Wilfrid Sellars Naturalism with a Normative Turn [Paperback]

The work of the American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars continues to have a significant impact on the contemporary philosophical scene. His writings have influenced major thinkers such as Rorty, McDowell, Brandom, and Dennett, and many of Sellars basic conceptions, such as the logical space of reasons, the myth of the given, and the manifest and scientific images, have become standard philosophical terms. Often, however, recent uses of these terms do not reflect the richness or the true sense of Sellars original ideas. This book gets to the heart of Sellars philosophy and provides students with a comprehensive critical introduction to his lifes work.

The book is structured around what Sellars himself regarded as the philosophers overarching task: to achieve a coherent vision of reality that will finally overcome the continuing clashes between the world as common sense takes it to be and the world as science reveals it to be. It provides a clear analysis of Sellars groundbreaking philosophy of mind, his novel theory of consciousness, his defense of scientific realism, and his thoroughgoing naturalism with a normative turn. Providing a lively examination of Sellars work through the central problem of what it means to be a human being in a scientific world, this book will be a valuable resource for all students of philosophy.

Preface ix

Acknowledgements xii

Introduction 1

1 The Philosophical Quest and the Clash of the Images 10

The quest for a stereoscopic fusion of the manifest and scientific images 10

The clash of the images and the status of the sensible qualities 14

Sensing, thinking, and willing: persons as complex physical systems? 17

2 Scientific Realism and the Scientific Image 23

Empiricist approaches to the interpretation of scientific theoril³&