This collection of new essays on the systematic thought and intellectual legacy of the American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars comes at a time when Sellars's influence on contemporary debates about mind, meaning, knowledge, and metaphysics has never been greater. A team of well-known contemporary philosophers who have been strongly influenced by Sellars critically examines the groundbreaking ideas by means of which Sellars sought to integrate our thought, perception, and rational agency within a naturalistic outlook on reality. Topics include Sellars's inferentialist semantics (...) and normative functionalist view of the mind; his attempted reconciliations of internalist and externalist aspects of thought, meaning, and knowledge; his novel nominalist account of abstract entities; and a speculative 'pure process' metaphysics of consciousness. Of particular interest is how this volume exhibits the ongoing fruitful dialogue between philosophers whose work continues to be inspired and informed by Sellars's thought today. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781) remains a landmark work of philosophy and one that most students will encounter at some point in their studies. At nearly seven hundred pages of detailed and complex argument it is a demanding and intimidating read. James O’Shea’s introduction to the Critique seeks to make it less so. Aimed primarily at students coming to the book for the first time, it provides step-by-step analysis in clear, unambiguous prose. The conceptual problems Kant sought to (...) resolve are outlined and his conclusions concerning the nature of human knowledge and the possibility of metaphysics, and the arguments for those conclusions, are explored. Key concepts are explained throughout and the reader is provided with an unrivalled route map through the many and varied parts of the text. In addition, O’Shea’s careful and insightful analysis offers much for more seasoned readers of Kant and his interpretation provides a significant contribution to recent work. -/- “Exhibiting both care and liveliness, the text provides what it set out to offer, namely a readable and philosophically stimulating discussion of a difficult but seminal work. The discussion is genuinely approachable and clear without diminishing the difficulty of the problems it addresses. It provides students with a very helpful basis for understanding Kant’s book.” Graham Bird, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Manchester. (shrink)

A review of deVries' and O'Shea's books, both titled "Wilfrid Sellars". By Jaroslav Peregrin.

This article examines the relationship in Kant between transcendental laws and empirical laws (focusing on causal laws), and then brings a particular interpretation of that issue to bear on familiar puzzles concerning the status of the regulative maxims of reason and reflective judgment. It is argued that the 'indeterminate objective validity' possessed by the regulative maxims derives ultimately from strictly constitutive demands of understanding.

This selective overview of the history of American Philosophy in the Twentieth Century begins with certain enduring themes that were developed by the two main founders of classical American pragmatism, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839--1914) and William James. Against the background of the pervasive influence of Kantian and Hegelian idealism in America in the decades surrounding the turn of the century, pragmatism and related philosophical outlooks emphasizing naturalism and realism were dominant during the first three decades of the century. Beginning in (...) the 1930s and 1940s, however, the middle third of the century witnessed the rising influence in America of what would become known as “‘analytic philosophy’,” with its primary roots in Europe: in the Cambridge philosophical analysis of Moore, Russell, and Wittgenstein; logical empiricism and positivism on the continent; and linguistic analysis and ordinary- language philosophy at Oxford. This overview stresses the persistence of pragmatist themes throughout much of the century, while emphasizing the mid-century transformations that resulted from developments primarily in analytic philosophy. These combined influences resulted at the turn of the millennium in the flourishing, among other developments, of distinctively analytic styles of pragmatism and naturalism. (shrink)

At the center of both Humean and Kantian experience is a connection between the objectivity of perception and the concept of substantial identity. In the course of examining both systems as responses to structurally similar problems of perceptual objectivity, I argue that Kant's conception of substantial persistence is superior to Hume's account of the idea of identity. ;There are deep tensions in Hume's account of perception that are partially explicable in terms of his complex and naturalistic 'moderate scepticism' and the (...) conflict in the faculties of causal reasoning and imagination upon which it rests. Despite the subtlety of his explanatory scepticism, however, there remains a damaging vacillation in Hume between perceptible phenomena understood as the objects of 'vulgar' direct realism on the one hand, and as the subjective images of the causal-representationalist philosophy on the other. There are also difficulties with Hume's idea of perfect identity, the foundation of both the vulgar and philosophical systems of belief in body. Starting from an assumption of radical perceptual diversity, Hume unsuccessfully attempts to build an idea of substantial identity upon the fiction of a duration without change. ;The tension in Hume concerning the direct objects of perception is paralleled by the subjective/objective ambiguity of Kant's perceptual content terms. In Kant, however, the ambiguity reflects a coherent account of conceptualization, perceptual judgment, and self-conscious temporal experience. I examine Kant's arguments for the persistence and absolute permanence of substance and show that they are largely successful if premises are supplied from the general account of objective judgment and the unity of consciousness. ;Hume's theory of perceptual belief is ingenious but ultimately unsatisfactory according to his own criteria. His failure to construct an idea of identity upon a fictitious duration casts favorable light on Kant's contention that substantial identity is a condition on having any cognition of duration. The two philosophers' dispute concerning identity is conceptually connected to their differing treatments of the 'given' element in perception. (shrink)

Kant's monumental book the Critique of Pure Reason was arguably the most conceptually revolutionary work in the history of philosophy and its impact continues to be felt throughout philosophical debates today. However, it is a notoriously difficult work whose basic meaning and lasting philosophical significance are both subject to ongoing controversy. In this Critical Guide, an international team of leading Kant scholars addresses the challenges, clarifying Kant's basic terms and arguments and engaging with the debates that surround this central text. (...) Providing compact explanations along with cutting-edge interpretations of nearly all of the main themes and arguments in Kant's Critique, this volume provides well-balanced arguments on such controversial topics as the interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism, conceptualism and non-conceptual content in perception, and the soundness of his transcendental arguments. This volume will engage readers of Kant at all levels. (shrink)