Mahdi Ranaee

This paper reconstructs what I call Sellars’s ‘master argument’ for conceptualism regarding Kantian intuitions—a coherent argumentative thread that appears throughout his works beginning with Science and Metaphysics. In contrast to standard interpretations that focus primarily on the role of the categories, I demonstrate that Sellars defends a robust form of conceptualism in which empirical concepts also play a constitutive role in intuition. The master argument proceeds through three key moves: defining Kantian intuition as a (singular) ‘representation of a manifold’; showing that such a representation is necessarily conceptual; and employing an Aristotelian reading of intuition as a ‘this-such’ or ‘tode ti’. This reconstruction not only clarifies Sellars’s distinctive position in the conceptualism/non-conceptualism debate but also provides resources for addressing some contemporary objections, particularly those concerning animal cognition and the content of intuitions.

In this chapter, Ranaee examines the influence of Kant’s philosophy on Sellars, considering both his exegetical analysis of Kant’s philosophy and areas where Sellars surpasses Kant. The chapter focuses on two key notions in Kantian philosophy: intuition and categories as products of the cognitive faculties of sensibility and understanding. It examines the following: (i) Sellars’s conceptualism regarding Kantian intuitions; (ii) the nonconceptual element he deems necessary for intuition; (iii) the role of imagination and image-models; and (iv) his revisionist interpretation of Kantian categories.

Throughout his philosophy, Kant relies on the crucial concepts of “objective validity” and “objective reality,” pivotal in arguments such as the “Transcendental Deduction of the Categories” and the “Refutation of Idealism” in his Critique of Pure Reason. However, the lack of desired clarity in Kant’s usage impedes scholarly progress. Despite their significance, “objective validity” and “objective reality” have not received sufficient attention in secondary literature. Consensus on whether they represent the same idea remains elusive, and even among those recognizing them as distinct concepts, disagreement persists regarding their precise meanings. In this paper, I show that these concepts are distinct. I argue that a concept is objectively valid when our right or entitlement to apply it to objects is established independently and prior to any intuition. Conversely, a concept is objectively real when presented to us in intuition, either in pure intuition, as seen in geometrical figures, or in empirical intuition, as evident in material objects. This interpretation, however, falls short of fully elucidating Kant’s use of these terms due to his lack of systematicity in their application across concepts, intuitions, objects, cognitions, representations, synthesis, and even ideas, God, and purposiveness. Consequently, while shedding light on many instances, this interpretation encounters limits.

This dissertation offers new and original readings of three major texts in the history of Western philosophy: Descartes’s “First Meditation,” Kant’s “Transcendental Deduction,” and his “Refutation of Idealism.” The book argues that each text addresses the problem of skepticism and posits that they have a hitherto underappreciated, organic relationship to one another. The dissertation begins with an analysis of Descartes’ “First Meditation,” which I argue offers two distinct and independent skeptical arguments that differ in both aim and scope. I call these arguments the “veil of ideas” argument and the “author of my origin” argument. My reading counters the standard interpretation of the text, which sees it as offering three stages of doubt, namely the occasional fallibility of the senses, the dream hypothesis, and the evil demon hypothesis. Building on this, the central argument of the dissertation is that Kant’s “Transcendental Deduction” actually transforms and radicalizes Descartes’s Author of My Origin argument, reconceiving its meaning within the framework of Kant’s own transcendental idealist philosophy. Finally, I argue that the Refutation of Idealism offers a similarly radicalized version of Descartes’s Veil of Ideas argument, albeit translated into the framework of transcendental idealism.

This chapter argues that Sellars’ categories differ significantly from Kantian categories in two important ways. Kantian categories are pure and necessary, whereas Sellars’ categories are impure and contingent. This distinction explains why Sellars does not offer a transcendental deduction; such a deduction is only necessary for pure categories since experience cannot be used to prove their objective validity. Contrary to Sellars' intention to align analytic philosophy more closely with Kant, these differences also suggest that his theory of categories represents a regression to Humean principles.

This book considers Wilfrid Sellars' engagement with Kantian philosophy-both theoretical and practical-in his exegetical work in reading Kant as well as in his own systematic development of Kantian philosophy. Despite the spate of new publications on Wilfrid Sellars' role in twentieth-century philosophy, a comprehensive book-length examination of his interpretation of Kant has been conspicuously absent. This volume fills that gap both exegetically and systematically, exploring his engagement in four distinct sections: (1) Logic and History, (2) Sensations and Intuitions, (3) Being and Categories, and (4) Reason, Modality, and Freedom. The chapters within these sections, written by leading experts, explore Sellars' reading of Kant and offer both defenses and critiques. Readers will find in this collection not only a thorough exploration of Sellars' engagement with Kant, but also a rich dialogue between Kant scholars and specialists in Sellars' philosophy. Reading Kant with Sellars will appeal to a wide range of scholars and advanced students from different fields and schools of thought. First and foremost, it is aimed at Kant and Sellars scholars, offering them deeper insights into their respective fields by highlighting the importance of Kant for Sellars and the relevance of Sellars' reading of Kant for Kant scholarship. Those interested in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, epistemology, moral and practical philosophy, and logic will also find this book highly relevant.

This paper will offer a systematic reconstruction of al-Ġazālī’s Sceptical Argument in his celebrated Deliverer/Delivered from Going Astray (al-Munqiḏ/al-Munqaḏ min al-Ḍalāl). Based on textual evidence, I will argue that the concept of certainty (yaqīn) in play in this argument is that of the philosophers—most notably Ibn Sīnā—and that it is firmly tied to demonstration (burhān) and hence to the materials of syllogism (mawwād al-qiyās). This will show that contrary to what many scholars believe, this Sceptical Argument is al-Ġazālī’s discovery of a latent sceptical problem in Muslim philosophers’ epistemological theories based on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics that escaped even the agile mind of aš-šayḫ ar-raʾīs Ibn Sīnā. This reconstruction will also shed some light on the widespread assumption that al-Ġazālī anticipates Descartes’s sceptical considerations in the First Meditation. I will argue that not only do the two thinkers use incompatible strategies to reach their respective sceptical conclusions, but both their conclusions and their use of God in refuting them are also essentially non-identical. The conclusion is that the two sceptical arguments are essentially different.

I offer a counterexample to Timothy Williamson’s conjecture that knowledge is the most general factive mental state; i.e., that every factive mental state entails knowledge. I describe two counterexamples (Ernest Sosa’s and Baron Reed’s) that I find unpersuasive, and argue that they fail due to a specific feature they have in common. I then argue that there is a primitive mental state that is factive but does not entail knowledge, and that constitutes a counterexample to Williamson’s conjecture that is not subject to the problems faced by Sosa’s and Reed’s counterexamples. Je propose un contre-exemple à la conjecture de Timothy Williamson selon laquelle la connaissance est l’état mental factif le plus général, c’est-à-dire que tout état mental factif implique la connaissance. Je décris deux contre-exemples (développés par Ernest Sosa et Baron Reed) que je considère comme étant peu probants, et je souligne que l’un et l’autre échouent à convaincre de par une caractéristique spécifique qu’ils partagent. Je soutiens ensuite qu’il existe un état mental primitif, factif mais n’impliquant pas la connaissance : ce dernier constitue un contre-exemple à la conjecture de Williamson sans être sujet aux problèmes rencontrés par les deux contre-exemples précédents.