1st Edition

Sellars and the History of Modern Philosophy

Edited By Luca Corti, Antonio M. Nunziante Copyright 2018
    292 Pages
    by Routledge

    292 Pages
    by Routledge

    This edited volume systematically addresses the connection between Wilfrid Sellars and the history of modern philosophy, exploring both the content and method of this relationship. It intends both to analyze Sellars’ position in relation to singular thinkers of the modern tradition, and to inquire into Sellars’ understanding of philosophy as a field in reflective and constructive conversation with its past. The chapters in Part I cover Sellars’ interpretation and use of Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, and Hegel. Part II features essays on his relationship with Peirce, Frege, Carnap, Wittgenstein, American pragmatism, behaviorism, and American realism, particularly his father, Roy Wood. Sellars and the History of Modern Philosophy features original contributions by many of the most renowned Sellars scholars throughout the world. It offers an exhaustive survey of Sellars’ views on the historical antecedents and meta-philosophical aspects of his thought.

    Introduction: The Lingua Franca of Thought: Willfrid Sellars and the History of Philosophy

    Part I: Sellars and Modern Philosophy

    1. Sellars on Descartes

    Christian Barth

    2. The Lingua franca of Nominalism: Sellars on Leibniz

    Antonio M. Nunziante

    3. Sellars and Hume on the Ontological Status of Theoretical-Explanatory Entities

    David Landy

    4. Sellars’ Interpretive Variations on Kant’s Transcendental Idealist Themes

    James R. O’Shea

    5. Hegel After Sellars: Conceptual Connections

    Luca Corti

    Part II: Sellars and the Beginning of the Contemporary Age

    6. Peirce and Sellars on Non-Conceptual Content

    Catherine Legg

    7. Sellars and Frege on Concepts and Laws

    Danielle Macbeth

    8. ‘We pragmatists mourn Sellars as a Lost Leader’: Sellars’ Pragmatist Distinction Between Signifying and Picturing

    Carl Sachs

    9. The Varieties and Origins of Wilfrid Sellars’ Behaviorism

    Peter Olen

    10. Sellars and Carnap: Science and/or Metaphysics

    Carlo Gabbani

    11. Sellars and Wittgenstein, Early and Late

    Guido Bonino and Paolo Tripodi

    12. Wilfrid Sellars and Roy Wood Sellars: Theoretical Continuities and Methodological Divergences

    Fabio Gironi

    Conclusions

    13. Thinking with Sellars and Beyond Sellars: On the Relations Between Philosophy and the History of Philosophy

    Biography

    Luca Corti is the FCT Post-Doctoral Fellow at Mind, Language, Action Group at the University of Porto, Portugal and the International Center for Philosophy at the University of Bonn, Germany. He has published two books and several articles on Kant, Hegel and contemporary Hegelisms, as well as on Sellars and Sellarsian themes, including Senses and Sensations: on Hegel’s Later Picture of Perceptual Experience (2018), Conceptualism, Non-Conceptualism, and the Method of Hegel’s Psychology (2016), Ritratti hegeliani (2014), Crossing The Line: Sellars on Kant on Imagination (2012).

    Antonio M. Nunziante is Associate Professor at the University of Padua, Italy. His research is in the history of ideas and is mainly focused on issues concerning naturalism and normativity in the Early Modern Philosophy (Leibniz), in the Classical German philosophy (Kant, Hegel) and in the pre-analytic American philosophy (early American naturalism). His works include: Infinite vs. Singularity. Between Leibniz and Hegel (2015), The "Morbid Fear of the Subjective". Privateness and Objectivity in Mid-twentieth Century American Naturalism (2013), Lo spirito naturalizzato. La stagione pre-analitica del naturalismo americano (2012), Representing Subjects, Mind-dependent Objects. Kant, Leibniz and the Amphiboly (with A. Vanzo, 2009), Individuals, Minds and Bodies: Themes from Leibniz (ed., "Studia Leibnitiana", 2004).

    "This volume is a valuable addition to Sellars studies. Corti and Nunziante did an excellent job of choosing the subject and bringing together an interesting group of both philosophically and historically well-versed Sellars scholars. The success of the merging of a historical, even philological, perspective on Sellars with a systematic approach to philosophical questions in particular paid philosophical dividends . . . Consequently, much remains to be done for future research with respect to this intriguing subject. Corti and Nunziante have succeeded in making a very strong case for this kind of research—and for making us aware that there is a whole new generation of Sellars scholars that is up for its complexities."Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews