{"agent_id":"sellars","agent_name":"Wilfrid Sellars","slug":"scientific-realism-sellarsian-kantianism-picturing","label":"Scientific realism + Sellarsian Kantianism + picturing: do theoretical entities have ontological priority, does language picture the world in a second-order isomorphism beyond inferential semantics, and does the Cassirer Lectures' transcendental project complete the Sellarsian system?","topic":"Scientific realism + Sellarsian Kantianism + picturing","question":"Do theoretical entities have ontological priority, does language picture the world in a second-order isomorphism beyond inferential semantics, and does the Cassirer Lectures' transcendental project complete the Sellarsian system?","position":"Scientific realism: theoretical entities (electrons, fields, molecules, the microphysical structures that scientific theory postulates) are real items in the ultimate ontology, not useful fictions or instrumental constructs. The scientific image has ontological priority over the manifest image on the question of what exists. Sellarsian Kantianism: the transcendental project of Science and Metaphysics (1968) and the Cassirer Lectures (1975-76) investigates the conditions under which experience and knowledge are possible — the categorial structure of the conceptual framework, the relation of sensibility and understanding, the role of productive imagination in synthesizing experience. Picturing: language pictures the world in a second-order isomorphism between linguistic patterns and worldly patterns. The picturing relation is the second dimension of the language- world relation beyond inferential semantics — what grounds reference and the application of conceptual frameworks to particular cases. Inferentialist semantics alone cannot do this work; the picturing apparatus is required for the full account.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Scientific realism: theoretical entities (electrons, fields, molecules, the microphysical structures that scientific theory postulates) are real items in the ultimate ontology, not useful fictions or instrumental constructs.","n":[1]},{"t":"The scientific image has ontological priority over the manifest image on the question of what exists.","n":[]},{"t":"Sellarsian Kantianism: the transcendental project of Science and Metaphysics (1968) and the Cassirer Lectures (1975-76) investigates the conditions under which experience and knowledge are possible — the categorial structure of the conceptual framework, the relation of sensibility and understanding, the role of productive imagination in synthesizing experience.","n":[]}],[{"t":"Picturing: language pictures the world in a second-order isomorphism between linguistic patterns and worldly patterns.","n":[]},{"t":"The picturing relation is the second dimension of the language- world relation beyond inferential semantics — what grounds reference and the application of conceptual frameworks to particular cases.","n":[2]},{"t":"Inferentialist semantics alone cannot do this work; the picturing apparatus is required for the full account.","n":[3]}]],"texts":"*Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes* (SM, 1968, the John Locke Lectures at Oxford 1965-66) — the canonical statement of the Sellarsian Kantianism and the picturing relation, especially Ch IV (the manifest and scientific images) and Ch V (the language of theories); *Naturalism and Ontology* (NAO, 1980, the 1974 John Dewey Lectures) — the late synthesis on scientific realism and ontology; *Kant's Transcendental Metaphysics: Sellars' Cassirer Lectures Notes and Other Essays* (Sicha ed., 2002) — the 1975-76 Cassirer Lectures at Yale; *Foundations for a Metaphysics of Pure Process* (FMPP, the Carus Lectures 1981); \"Truth and 'Correspondence'\" (TC, 1962); \"Towards a Theory of the Categories\" (TTC, 1970); \"Ontology, the A Priori and Kant\" (OAPK, 1970); the Kant essays in *Essays in Philosophy and Its History* (1974). Reception: Bas van Fraassen, *The Scientific Image* (1980) as the anti-realist counter-position; Paul Churchland and Hilary Putnam on scientific realism; Jay Rosenberg, *Wilfrid Sellars: Fusing the Images* (OUP 2007) — defending the picturing apparatus; Robert Brandom on inferentialism vs picturing — the major contemporary debate over whether picturing is a residual representationalism the inferentialist tradition should move beyond, or a substantive Sellarsian contribution that should not be lost; James O'Shea, *Wilfrid Sellars: Naturalism with a Normative Turn* (Polity 2007).","works":["*Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes* (SM, 1968, the John Locke Lectures at Oxford 1965-66) — the canonical statement of the Sellarsian Kantianism and the picturing relation, especially Ch IV (the manifest and scientific images) and Ch V (the language of theories)","*Naturalism and Ontology* (NAO, 1980, the 1974 John Dewey Lectures) — the late synthesis on scientific realism and ontology","*Kant's Transcendental Metaphysics: Sellars' Cassirer Lectures Notes and Other Essays* (Sicha ed., 2002) — the 1975-76 Cassirer Lectures at Yale","*Foundations for a Metaphysics of Pure Process* (FMPP, the Carus Lectures 1981)","\"Truth and 'Correspondence'\" (TC, 1962)","\"Towards a Theory of the Categories\" (TTC, 1970)","\"Ontology, the A Priori and Kant\" (OAPK, 1970)","the Kant essays in *Essays in Philosophy and Its History* (1974)"],"reception":"Bas van Fraassen, *The Scientific Image* (1980) as the anti-realist counter-position; Paul Churchland and Hilary Putnam on scientific realism; Jay Rosenberg, *Wilfrid Sellars: Fusing the Images* (OUP 2007) — defending the picturing apparatus; Robert Brandom on inferentialism vs picturing — the major contemporary debate over whether picturing is a residual representationalism the inferentialist tradition should move beyond, or a substantive Sellarsian contribution that should not be lost; James O'Shea, *Wilfrid Sellars: Naturalism with a Normative Turn* (Polity 2007).","status":"settled-as-articulated-with-active-late-debate","era":"1912-1989","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"PART THREE EMPIRICISM AND ABSTRACT ENTITIES","page":"pp. 298–299","canonical":"","quote":"And such existence statements as are interpreted as explicitly committing us to certain nonlinguistic entities (properties) as There are lions explicitly commits us to lions. (a) must exist in order for the statements of a 'good' scientific framework to have truth value; and (b) are not 'in principle' reducible by explicit definitions (broadly construed) to structures of 'more basic' entities. 10.","label":"PART THREE EMPIRICISM AND ABSTRACT ENTITIES, pp. 298–299"},{"n":2,"work":"Science and Metaphysics - Variations on Kantian Themes","page":"p. 180","canonical":"","quote":"For the statements which formulate this picturing relation are contaminated by the Pickwickian character, analysed above, of the reference to the micro-physical entities which serve as the non-linguistic terms of the picturing relation. 89. \"Language entry\" uniformities are, as we have noted, essential to the meaning and truth of singular statements in the common-sense or observational framework.","label":"Science and Metaphysics - Variations on Kantian Themes, p. 180"},{"n":3,"work":"Science and Metaphysics - Variations on Kantian Themes","page":"pp. 208–209","canonical":"","quote":"For as long as the language of theoretical physics is used primarily at the level not of singular statements but at the level of the explanation of general truths, its role as depicting localized objects and events in Space and Time (if such a role is, as I have argued, appropriate) would remain potential, and actual depicting left to singular statements in the Strawsonian framework. 57.","label":"Science and Metaphysics - Variations on Kantian Themes, pp. 208–209"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-myth-of-the-given","label":"The Myth of the Given: are non-inferential cognitive states that ground empirical knowledge independent of any conceptual framework incoherent, and does EPM destroy the foundationalist tradition?"},{"slug":"psychological-nominalism-and-the-space-of-reasons","label":"Psychological nominalism and the space of reasons: is all awareness of universals, abstract entities, and sense-qualities mediated by language, and is knowledge placement in the normative logical space of justification rather than a natural-causal relation?"},{"slug":"manifest-vs-scientific-image-and-the-synoptic-vision","label":"Manifest vs Scientific image and the synoptic vision: is philosophy's task the stereoscopic fusion of the two images, and does the scientific image have ontological priority on what exists?"},{"slug":"the-jonesian-myth-and-the-language-of-mental-episodes","label":"The Jonesian myth and the language of mental episodes: are thoughts inner-speech analogues introduced as theoretical posits to explain behavior, and are sensations theoretical posits introduced to explain perceptual states?"}]}