Synoptic Fusion and Dialectical Dissociation: The Entwinement of Linguistic and Experiential Pragmatisms à la Wilfrid Sellars
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Date
2021-09-13
Authors
Naeb, Cheyenne
Journal Title
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
This work will attempt to examine the relationship between experiential and linguistic pragmatism through the lens of the twentieth-century Analytic philosopher, Wilfrid Sellars. I maintain that Sellars meta-linguistic nominalism and theory of both conceptual and non-conceptual representation, the latter being known as “picturing”, can stitch together the most vital components from both sides of the schism. I shall compare the thought of Sellars to that of two representatives corresponding to the two forms of pragmatism listed above, those representatives being John Dewey and Robert Brandom. Using Sellars’s famous critique of “the given” as a starting point, I assess whether either thinker falls prey to said critique. From thereon I examine both representatives’ relation to Sellars and where the differences and similarities lie. I conclude with a Hegelian interpretation of Sellars’s theory of representation as a preliminary sketch of a future “naturalized pragmatism.”