Dionysis Christias

The aim of this paper is threefold. First, we examine the Sellarsian concept of the (myth of the) categorial Given, focus on its wide application and suggest that it can be applied to those post-Kantian philosophical views, currently fashionable in Continental philosophical circles, for which Quentin Meillassoux coins the term “correlationism”: the view that mind and world are “always already” given to us as essentially related to one another, and only subsequently can they be thought of as being independently existing and meaningful “entities.” Second, it is pointed out that Sellars uses an argument against the explanatory adequacy of the manifest image (an image with essential “Givenist” elements in its descriptive and explanatory dimension) that is exactly of the same form as Meillassoux’s argument against correlationism, but, which, when combined with other crucial Sellarsian views concerning the transcendental/empirical distinction, can avoid a problematic feature of Meillassoux’s argument, and, in this way, constitute a better philosophical weapon against correlationism. Finally, it is suggested that by not drawing the transcendental/empirical distinction in the right (i.e., Sellarsian) way, Meillassoux himself is exposed and, in the constructive (“speculative realist”) part of his work, indeed succumbs to a version of the myth of the categorial Given.

In this paper, we shall describe and critically evaluate four contemporary theories which attempt to solve the problem of the infinite regress of reasons: BonJour's ‘impure’ coherentism, BonJour's foundationalism, Haack's ‘foundherentism’ and Dancy's pure coherentism. These theories are initially put forward as theories about the justification of our empirical beliefs; however, in fact they also attempt to provide a successful response to the question of their own ‘metajustification.’ Yet, it will be argued that 1) none of the examined theories is successful as a theory of justification of our empirical beliefs, and that 2) they also fall short of being adequate theories of metajustification. It will be further suggested that the failure of these views on justification is not coincidental, but is actually a consequence of deeper and tacitly held problematic epistemological assumptions (namely, the requirements of justificatory generality and epistemic priority), whose acceptance paves the way towards a generalized scepticism about empirical justification.

In his new book, Brandom offers a new argument against the viability of Sellars’ scientific naturalism. Brandom attempts to show that if the Sellarsian it scientia mensura principle is understood as implying that manifest-image objects exist only if they are identical to scientific-image objects, it is undermined by the ‘Kant–Sellars’ thesis about identity which implies that manifest-image objects cannot be identical to scientific-image objects. This conclusion can be evaded by construing the relation between manifest and scientific objects as weaker than that of identity, namely as a relation between manifest-image functional roles and scientific-image realizers. But Brandom again argues that even this weaker construal of the scientia mensura thesis is in conflict with another Sellarsian argument, this time against phenomenalism. It will be argued that this is not so. I will, moreover, suggest that the ‘function-realizer’ construal of the manifest-scientific image distinction is indeed tenable—especially if the process of determining the scientific-image realizers of functional roles specified in manifest-image is understood as the culmination of a self-correcting dynamic and diachronic process of conceptual change. Finally, I will argue that while Brandom is right to point out that Sellars’ adherence to the scientia mensura principle is based on a ‘unity-of-science’ view, he is wrong to think that his argument for the contrary conclusion is successful, because Brandom’s argument does not automatically tell against a weaker ‘unity-of-science’ view according to which incommensurability of explanatory levels in science is a pragmatically indispensable yet in principle dispensable feature of empirical inquiry.

In this article, we will attempt to understand Sellars’ puzzling notion of ‘adequate picturing’ and its relation to the Sellarsian ‘conceptual order’ through Spinoza’s intuitive knowledge. First, it will be suggested that there are important structural similarities between Sellarsian ‘adequate picturing’ and Spinoza’s intuitive knowledge which can illuminate some ‘dark’ and not so well understood features of Sellarsian picturing. However, there remain some deep differences between Sellars’ and Spinoza’s philosophy, especially with regard to their notion of ‘adequacy’ and the sense in which an idea can be said to ‘correspond’ with its object. As a consequence of those differences it turns out that, from a Sellarsian viewpoint, Spinoza’s notion of intuitive knowledge is a version of the myth of the Given. However, Sellars’ own proposed way out of the Myth has problematic consequences by Sellars’ own lights: His sharp distinction between the ‘space of reasons’ level and the level of picturing makes the Sellarsian vision of the ‘stereoscopic fusion’ of those levels virtually unintelligible. Finally, it will be argued that a non-standard interpretation of Spinoza’s intuitive knowledge -proposed in Baltas -, combined with a Sellars-inspired bifurcated understanding of Dreyfusian expert knowledge, can provide the means 1) for constructing a notion of intuitive knowledge that evades the myth of the Given, and, 2) for making full sense of the claim that the ‘space of reasons’ dimension of understanding the world can in principle be fused with the ‘picturing’ dimension and provide us with a single complex coherent experience of reality and our place in it.

This article examines Wilfrid Sellars's views on the epistemic status of philosophical propositions. It suggests that according to Sellars philosophical propositions are normative and practically oriented. They do not form a theory for the description of reality; their function is, rather, that of motivating actions which aim at changing reality. The article argues that the role of philosophical propositions can be illuminated if they are understood as a special kind of (proposed) “material” rules of inference, provided that the latter are construed as being firmly entrenched in practice. To this end, a distinction between “theoretical” and “practical” anomalies is drawn to better elucidate—and in some cases criticize and further expand—Sellars's position on the relation between the theoretical and practical dimensions of philosophical activity. In this connection, the Weberian notion of the “disenchantment of the world” is used to throw light on the relation between these two dimensions.

The aim of this paper is to properly situate and contrast McDowell’s and Sellars’ views on intuitional content and relate them to their corresponding views on the myth of the Given. Although McDowell’s and Sellars’ views on what McDowell calls ‘intuitional’ content seem at first strikingly similar, at a deeper level they are radically different. It will be suggested that this divergence is intimately related to their different understanding of what the myth of the Given consists in and how it should be best avoided. It will also be argued that certain McDowell-inspired objections against the viability of the Sellarsian concept of the Categorial Given actually misconstrue the place of this notion in Sellars’ system. If the myth of the Categorial Given can be considered as a genuine version of the Myth then McDowell’s account of intuitional content does indeed fall prey to it. I shall further argue that a McDowell-inspired objection against Sellars to the effect that his account of proper sensibles compromises the openness of intuitional content to the world ultimately fails, and, finally, I shall suggest that Sellars’ views on proper sensibles and intuitional content provide a more promising account of the way our thought and experience can be rationally open to the world itself than McDowell’s position.