Publisher Description

The most important work by one of America's greatest twentieth-century philosophers, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind is both the epitome of Wilfrid Sellars' entire philosophical system and a key document in the history of philosophy. First published in essay form in 1956, it helped bring about a sea change in analytic philosophy. It broke the link, which had bound Russell and Ayer to Locke and Hume--the doctrine of "knowledge by acquaintance." Sellars' attack on the Myth of the Given in Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind was a decisive move in turning analytic philosophy away from the foundationalist motives of the logical empiricists and raised doubts about the very idea of "epistemology."

With an introduction by Richard Rorty to situate the work within the history of recent philosophy, and with a study guide by Robert Brandom, this publication of Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind makes a difficult but indisputably significant figure in the development of analytic philosophy clear and comprehensible to anyone who would understand that philosophy or its history.

Author Biography

Wilfrid Sellars (1912-1989) graduated from the University of Michigan in 1933. He taught at Iowa, Minnesota, and Yale, and was University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh from 1963 until his death. His works include Science and Metaphysics (1968) and Science, Perception, and Reality (1963). Richard Rorty (1931–2007) authored several landmark books and essay collections, including Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature; Consequences of Pragmatism; Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity; and Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America. He taught at Wellesley College, Princeton University, the University of Virginia, and Stanford University. Robert B. Brandom is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh and a Fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the British Academy. He delivered the John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford and the Woodbridge Lectures at Columbia University. Brandom is the author of many books, including Making It Explicit, Reason in Philosophy, and From Empiricism to Expressivism (all from Harvard).

Table of Contents

Introduction by Richard Rorty An Ambiguity in Sense-Datum Theories Another Language? The Logic of 'Looks' Explaining Looks Impressions and Ideas: a Logical Point Impressions and Ideas: A Historical Point The Logic of 'Means' Does Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation? Science and Ordinary Usage Private Episodes: The Problem Thoughts: The Classical View Our Rylean Ancestors Theories and Models Methodological versus Philosophical Behaviorism The Logic of Private Episodes: Thoughts The Logic of Private Episodes: Impressions Study Guide by Robert Brandom

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