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Wilfrid Sellars, Idealism, and Realism is the first study of its kind to address a range of realist and idealist views inspired by psychological nominalism. Bringing together premier analytic realists and distinguished defenders of German idealism, it reveals why psychological nominalism is one of the most important theories of the mind to come out the 20th century.The theory, first put forward by Wilfrid Sellars, argues that language is the only means by which humans can learn the types of socially shared practices that permit rationality. Although wedded to important aspects of German idealism, Sellars'' theory is couched in bold realist terms of the analytic tradition. Those who are sympathetic to German idealism find this realist''s appropriation of German idealism problematic. Wilfrid Sellars, Idealism and Realism thus creates a rare venue for realists and idealists to debate the epistemic outcome of the mental processes they both claim are essential to experience. Their resulting discussion bridges the gap between analytic and continental philosophy. In providing original and accessible chapters on psychological nominalism, this volume raises themes that intersect with numerous disciplines: the philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics. It also provides clarity on arguably the best available account of why humans can reason, be self-aware, know, and act as agents.>
List of contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Aims, Hopes, and Images: A Prologue to Sellars's Metaphilosophy (László Kocsis and Krisztián Pete)
Part I. Clash of the Images
1- Philosophy and Its Images of Man (Danielle Macbeth)
2- Semantic Holism and the Clash of Images (Willem DeVries)
3- Normativity and the Scientific Image: A Sellarsian-Realist Perspective (Thodoris Dimitrakos and Stathis Psillos)
Part II. Metaphysics and the Sciences
4- Neo-Sellarsian Images of Philosophy and Science (Ted Parent)
5- Modal Structure and Sellars's Metaphysical Methodology (Catherine Legg and Aiden Meyer)
6- Scientific Metaphysics and the Stereoscopic View of Sellars's Two Images (Matthias Egg)
7- From the Myth of the Given to Human Freedom: A (Neo-)Kantian perspective (Michael Esfeld)
Part III. Historical Appropriations
8- A Kantian Defense of Sellarsian Picturing (David Landy)
9- On Sellars's Logical Atomist Scientific Ontology (James O'Shea)
10- Sellars's logical empiricism (Michael R. Hicks)
Part IV. Concepts and other Philosophical Tools
11- Is Perceptual Knowledge Framework-relative? McDowell contra Sellars (Dionysis Christias)
12- The Metaphor of the Space of Reasons (Stefanie Dach)
13- Hypergraphing the Space of Reason (Luz Christopher Seiberth)
Bibliography
About the author
Patrick J. Reider teaches at Misericordia University, USA.
