It has often been noted that philosophy, at least on most self-understandings of the discipline, has a uniquely important relationship to its historical past. As Wilfrid Sellars (1912–89) once put the claim rather strongly in his 1968 book, Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes:
The history of philosophy is the lingua franca which makes communication between philosophers, at least of different points of view, possible. Philosophy without the history of philosophy, if not empty or blind, is at least dumb.
Sellars would no doubt have been pleased to have witnessed that in the decades since his death his own broadly “analytic” philosophy is now frequently placed in a line of thinking that traces back both to the German idealism of Kant and Hegel, and to the American pragmatist and scientific naturalist traditions. In particular, the views of Kant and Hegel are now regularly discussed in relation to Sellars’ famous critique of what he called the myth of the given, in which he argued against ‘the given’ understood roughly as the idea that at bottom all of our knowledge must ultimately rest on some foundation or other of directlyself-evident principles or experiences.
By contrast, Sellars argued that any particular instances of thought and knowledge necessarily always presuppose some wider systematic framework of concepts, meanings, and normative claims, and that such conceptual frameworks change over time in complex but rationally tractable ways. To quote Sellars’ well-known remark in this regard from his 1956 work, “Empiricism and the Philosophy Mind”:
The essential point is that in characterizing an episode or a state as that of knowing, we are not giving an empirical description of that episode or state; we are placing it in the logical space of reasons, of justifying and being able to justify what one says.
It is this Sellarsian conception of the “logical space of reasons” that has particularly animated many recent discussions of Kant and Hegel, most notably in light of two particularly influential books published in 1994: Robert Brandom’s Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment, and John McDowell’s Mind and World (both with debts to Richard Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, 1979).
In these recent discussions, Kant, Hegel, and Sellars are represented by Brandom and McDowell as part of a coherent and evolving line of thought that stresses the normative and social nature of human rationality and intentionality. The relationships constitutive of intentionality, according to this line of thought, remain irreducibly valid at its own level independently of, but compatibly with, the astonishing progress of modern science in explaining other aspects of nature and human nature. Sellars characterized this as the modern philosopher’s task of integrating the common sense “manifest image” and the developing “scientific image” of the human being in the world into one coherent “synoptic vision” of our naturally embodied rational agency and mindedness.
As with all matters philosophical, however, the above snapshot simplifies a host of fascinating issues and interpretive controversies that have subsequently taken on a life of their own. It’s not clear, for example, that the thought of either Kant, or Hegel, or Sellars is best portrayed in either the general or specific ways defended by Brandom or McDowell, who in the details of their own views often sharply differ from one another to boot. It is also well known that philosophers who were strongly influenced by Sellars subsequently divided into what came to be known as the “left-wing” and “right-wing” Sellarsians, with the former defending those aspects of Sellars highlighted by Brandom and McDowell (Danielle Macbeth, Rebecca Kukla and Mark Lance, and Michael Williams are three examples that come to mind), while the latter stress the strongly scientific-naturalist priorities of Sellars’ philosophy (Ruth Millikan, Johanna Seibt, Paul and Patricia Churchland, and David Rosenthal, for example). There are also increasing numbers of philosophers who have become interested in the question of whether perhaps Sellars’ own ‘Kantian naturalist’ middle way represented a more viable philosophical outlook than subsequent philosophers have recognized.
What would be particularly interesting and productive would be an in-depth, multi-week seminar devoted to a closer examination of these issues by a community of scholars interested in the line of thinking from Kant, Hegel, and Sellars through to Brandom and McDowell. Fortunately, just such a four-week intensive NEH-funded Seminar open to (U.S.) College and University Teachers has just been awarded to us, co-directors Professor Willem deVries (University of New Hampshire, UNH) and Professor James O’Shea (University College Dublin, UCD), and will take place at UNH from June 19 to July 19, 2019.
Titled “After Empiricism: Kant, Hegel, and Sellars in the Space of Reasons,” this NEH Seminar will provide living expenses for sixteen college teachers and researchers to be selected from interested applicants who will apply before March 1, 2019. Application forms and requirements, together with further information about the program, will be available soon (after November 1) on the project’s website. Applications will be accepted starting December 15, 2018. Applicants will be notified of acceptance on March 29, 2019. Further inquiries can be directed to Kant.Hegel.Sellars@unh.edu.
This summer seminar will itself be a diverse and intellectually lively space of reasons not to be missed. So for anyone interested in any of the thinkers Kant, Hegel, and Sellars – experts and non-experts alike – please do check out the website as it evolves and think about applying to join the discussion.
Willem A. deVries
Willem A. deVries is Professor Emeritus at the University of New Hampshire, retiring in 2021 after 33 years there. He has also taught at Amherst College, Harvard University, Tufts University, University College Dublin, and the University of Vienna. Along with Henry Jackman, he co-edits the Routledge Studies in American Philosophy book series. His undergraduate degree is from Haverford College, his graduate degrees from the University of Pittsburgh. His publications have focused on G.W.F. Hegel and Wilfrid Sellars, with forays into other topics as well.
James O'Shea
James O’Shea holds degrees from Georgetown and the University of North Carolina, where he worked with Jay Rosenberg and Simon Blackburn. He is Professor of Philosophy at University College Dublin and has published on Hume, Kant, Sellars, and American Philosophy. Jim is Reviews Editor of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies, and Treasurer of the International Irish Philosophical Club.
