Wilfrid Sellars - Philosophical Contributions

Philosophical Contributions

Sellars coined certain now-common idioms in philosophy, such as the "space of reasons". This idiom refers to two things. It:

1. Describes the conceptual and behavioral web of language that humans use to get intelligently around their world,
2. Denotes the fact that talk of reasons, epistemic justification, and intention is not the same as, and cannot necessarily be mapped onto, talk of causes and effects in the sense that physical science speaks of them.

(2) corresponds in part to the distinction Sellars makes between the manifest image and the scientific image.

The Incompatible Food Triad puzzle has been attributed to Sellars.

Sellar's work has been drawn upon in feminist standpoint theory, for example in the work of Rebecca Kukla.