Wilfrid Stalker Sellars (May 20th 1912, July 2nd 1989) is a philosopher American. He is the son of the philosopher américano-Canadian Roy Wood Sellars. Sellars made its studies in Michigan, at the University of Buffalo, then with Oxford, where it obtained its diploma (MY) in 1940. During the second world war, it was useful in the military informations. He taught then at the University of Iowa, the University of Minnesota and Yale, then, of 1963 until his death, with the Université of Pittsburgh, whose department of philosophy became under its direction one of best in the world.

Sellars is above all known to be a critic of the Fondationalisme, theory epistemological which affirms that the regressive justification of our beliefs (theoretical) stops with certain fundamental empirical beliefs. It was undoubtedly one of the first philosophers to successfully combine the elements of the American Pragmatisme with those of the analytical Philosophie British and American, and of the logical Positivisme Austrian and German. Its work touch with a great number of subjects, as well in Philosophie as in Histoire of philosophy; it was one of the rare philosophers of the analytical tradition to recognize one positive theoretical utility with the history of philosophy. The work of Sellars is at the same time the angular stone and the prototype of what is called sometimes the “School of Pittsburgh”. The principal figures of this current are Robert Brandom, John McDowell, John Haugeland, and James Conant. The influence of Sellars radiated on a broad spectrum of theoretical tendencies, energy of the American deconstructionnists (Richard Rorty and its pupils David Rosenthal, Laurence Hello, and Robert Brandom) until work of Hector-Neri Castaneda, Bruce Alder, Jay Rosenberg, Johanna Seibt, Andrew Chrucky, Jeffrey Sicha, Pedro Amaral, Thomas Vinci, Willem de Vries, and Timm Triplett, to quote only some of them.

Empiricism and Philosophy of the spirit

The most famous work of Wilfrid Sellars is length and difficult article Empiricism and the Philosophy off Mind, where one finds a discussion thorough of what it calls " the Myth of Given " ( Myth off the Given ). In the broad outlines, this concept indicates one of the central theses of the Phénoménologie and from the theory of the Sense dated (also called representationalism ), according to which we draw from the perceptive experiment of knowledge which is independent of (and, in a certain direction, former to) the whole of the conceptual tools which make possible our perception of the objects. Sellars is caught some at the same time with several theories, victims according to him of this same " mythe" , such as the Kantian pragmatism of C.I. Lewis or the logical empiricism of Rudolf Carnap. Sellars continues its analysis while building, for better establishing its criticism, " the myth of Jones" , philosophical fable of which the goal is to explain how rational thoughts, actions, and even of the internal subjective experiments can be allotted to others without anything to cut off with the designs the most strict Béhaviorisme. Sellars calls the members of its imaginary tribe the " Ryléens" ( Ryleans ), in reference to Gilbert Ryle, of which it takes again and discusses the theses; those (what is called generally the logical behaviorism ) find the their expression clearest in the Concept of spirit ( The Concept off Mind ). The concept of " mythe" what uses Sellars, largely influenced by Ernst Cassirer, is not to in no case purely critical or pejorative: a myth can indeed have a certain utility, independently of its value of truth. One of the main aims of Sellars, qualified in its last work of " kantien" , was to reconcile the rational behaviors (what it called " the space of the raisons" ( space off let us reasons )) with the idea of subjective significant experiment. Some judge that this approach presents the defect to scramble the traditional empirical distinction between the subject of knowledge and the objects which he knows, and to also imply a certain form d'" linguistic Idealism ".

Problems of Sellars

In its article Philosophy and the Scientific Image off Man (translated into French in the compilation of texts: Philosophy of the spirit, volume 1, " psychology of the common direction and sciences of the esprit" , published by Denis Fisette and Pierre Pear tree), Sellars establishes a deep distinction between l'" image manifeste" and l'" image scientifique" of the man. In spite of appearances, this distinction is not easy to interpret. In particular, one can wonder whether l'" image manifeste" is really conceived like the rebuilding of a prospect for the common direction. One can make the assumption that l'" image manifeste" described the way in which the world is interpreted by the language that we usually let us use in our trade with the things and the other being human (this language includes concepts referring to the intentions, the thoughts, appearances), while l'" image scientifique" described the world in the terms used by physical sciences, proposing the causal explanation of the phenomena, discovering in the material objects of the particles and the fields of force. But that does not mean that the manifest image and the scientific image are in all incompatible connections. Indeed, insofar as the manifest image takes into account the regulations of morality put aside by the scientific image, which wants to be simply descriptive , these two manners of representing the man in the world present at least an aspect of complementarity. Problems of Sellars, i.e. the setting at the day of the discussion in depth opposing those which affirm the primacy of the manifest image to those which hold on the contrary for that of the scientific image, although it clarifies many former arguments and is likely to launch news of them, can be clearly formulated only if one agrees on the true nature of the " primauté" it is question.

It should be noted that Sellars itself affirmed the primacy of the scientific image only in the field of empirical descriptions and the explanations. This position what is called defines more generally the " naturalisme" , philosophical doctrines which affirm the theoretical primacy of a design of the man in conformity with the methodology of sciences of the nature, and which thus rejects the idea that such or such aspect (biological, psychological, cultural) of humanity would be by principle inaccessible to scientific description, and would be explainable only by other means. Rare are the naturalists who preach the pure and simple abandonment of the manifest image. Daniel Clement Dennett, one of the most famous representatives of this tendency, thus recognizes the great utility of the image expresses (the concept is partly translated at his place by the concept of " posture intentionnelle" - intentional stanza ); but only a scientific explanation can render comprehensible to us why the manifest image is so useful and, generally, if reliable. The most famous adversaries of the naturalism rather meet in the tradition of the continental Philosophie, and Heidegger is an good example.

Contributions

Sellars created a certain number of philosophical expressions become common since, such as for example l'" space reasons ( space off let us reasons ). This expression can get busy in two directions:

1. It can describe the conceptual and behavioral network which makes it possible the being human to face with reality successfully.

2. It can also indicate the fact that the speeches evoking of the reasons, the justifications and the intentions different from the bearing speech on causal relations (such as physical sciences conceive them), and cannot be translated in their terms. (One finds here the distinction between scientific image and manifest image.)

External bonds

• Stanford Encyclopedia off Philosophy: Wilfrid Sellars -- Jay Rosenberg.

• the Web site of Wilfrid Sellars. One finds there a bibiography complete, certain consultable work on line, and a list of the theses which it directed.
• Autobiographical Reflections .
• Dictionary off the Philosophy off Mind: Wilfrid Sellars -- Christopher Gauker.

Random links:

Denys Gagnon | Léviathan (Hobbes) | Đura Jakšić | Feira da Ladra | Hallandsposten