1st Edition
Reading Kant with Sellars Reconceiving Kantian Themes
This book considers Wilfrid Sellars’ engagement with Kantian philosophy—both theoretical and practical—in his exegetical work in reading Kant as well as in his own systematic development of Kantian philosophy.
Despite the spate of new publications on Wilfrid Sellars’ role in twentieth-century philosophy, a comprehensive book-length examination of his interpretation of Kant has been conspicuously absent. This volume fills that gap both exegetically and systematically, exploring his engagement in four distinct sections: (1) Logic and History, (2) Sensations and Intuitions, (3) Being and Categories, and (4) Reason, Modality, and Freedom. The chapters within these sections, written by leading experts, explore Sellars’ reading of Kant and offer both defenses and critiques. Readers will find in this collection not only a thorough exploration of Sellars’ engagement with Kant, but also a rich dialogue between Kant scholars and specialists in Sellars’ philosophy.
Reading Kant with Sellars is essential reading for Kant and Sellars scholars, offering them deeper insights into their respective fields by highlighting the importance of Kant for Sellars and the relevance of Sellars’ reading of Kant for Kant scholarship. It will also appeal to scholars and advanced students in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, epistemology, moral and practical philosophy, and logic.
Introduction: Kantian Themes in a Transcendental Linguistic Turn Mahdi Ranaee and Luz Christopher Seiberth
Part I: Logic and History
1. Letting the Dead Speak: On Sellars’ Kant Colin McLear
2. Transcendental Logic and Sellars’ Early Papers August Buholzer
Part II: Sensations and Intuitions
3. Sellars and Kant on Intuitions and the Problem of Externality Rolf-Peter Horstmann
4. Kant and Sellars on Sensations Luca Corti
5. The Role of Imagination in Sellars’ Theory of Experience David Landy
6. What are Kant’s Sensible Intuitions? Nonconceptualism, Sellars, and Allais James R. O’Shea
Part III: Being and Categories
7. Sellars and Kant on Categories and their Schematization Johannes Haag
8. Why Does Wilfrid Sellars Not Have a Transcendental Deduction? Mahdi Ranaee
9. The Forms of Representation: How to be a Kantian Realist Willem deVries
10. Sellars’ Two Worlds Ryan Simonelli
11. Sellars’ Metaontology Luz Christopher Seiberth
Part IV: Reason, Modality and Freedom
12. Understanding Reason: A Defense of Kantian Naturalism Preston Stovall
13. Inferentialism, Modal Anti-Realism, and the Problem of Affection Griffin Klemick
14. “To Show the Compatibility of Compatibilism and Incompatibilism”: Sellars’ Reinvention of Kant’s Conception of Free Will Jeremy Randel Koons
Biography
Mahdi Ranaee is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Siegen, Germany. He specializes in Kant, history of analytic philosophy, Islamic philosophy, and epistemology. He is co-editor of Fraught with Ought: Selected Writings of Wilfrid Sellars (forthcoming) and his articles include “Non-Accidentally Factive Mental States” (Dialogue).
Luz Christopher Seiberth is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Potsdam, Germany and specializes in Kant. A symposium to his monograph Intentionality in Sellars (Routledge 2022) appeared in International Journal of Philosophical Studies (2022, 30/5). He is co-editor of Fraught with Ought: Selected Writings of Wilfrid Sellars (forthcoming).
"Bringing together fourteen new essays on an impressively wide range of Sellarsian themes in relation to their Kantian antecedents, this collection promises important new insights into the underlying dynamic of Sellars’ philosophy and its enduring significance for us today."
Danielle Macbeth, Haverford College, USA
"Though Sellars often affirmed his debt to Kant, there has been very little work to date which explicates the exact nature of this debt. Kant scholars largely either ignore Sellars or acknowledge him only in passing, and Sellars scholars usually do not know enough about Kant in sufficient detail to thoroughly evaluate Sellars’s debt to Kant. This collection promises to help remedy both lacunae, improving our understanding of both Kant and Sellars."
Carl B. Sachs, Marymount University, USA
"Among analytic philosophers, Wilfrid Sellars' career-long engagement with Kant's theoretical philosophy is paralleled in importance only with John Rawls's engagement with Kant's moral philosophy. As did Rawls, Sellars offered a distinctive interpretation of Kant's main ideas and also developed some of Kant's ideas in his own philosophy. This collection of essays by leading scholars of both Sellars and Kant breaks new ground in the interpretation of Sellars' reading of Kant and of Sellars' own philosophy."
Paul Guyer, Brown University, USA
"Ranaee and Seiberth bring together diverse scholarly viewpoints to navigate the complex dialogue between Kant and Sellars, addressing both historical context and contemporary relevance. This excellent collection of essays provides deep insights into the enduring influence of Kant on Sellars’ thought and the broader philosophical discourse. It will be essential reading for scholars and students of either of these great thinkers."
Andrew Stephenson, University of Southampton, UK
"In this ambitious and timely collection of essays, Mahdi Ranaee and Luz Christopher Seiberth unite fourteen impressive contributions on Kant and Sellars, which range from logic and metaphysics to the philosophy of mind and ethical theory. The authors make an excellent job of straddling the divide between analytic philosophy and serious historical scholarship. Highly recommended."
Jens Timmerman, University of St Andrews, UK
"There is an important minority approach to Kant and German Idealism - often associated with Pittsburgh, Postdam, and Leipzig -- that takes the work of Wilfrid Sellars as a touchstone. It is hard to find a clear synopsis of the Sellarsian approach, however (even in Sellars's own work!). This volume fills a key gap by bringing together a series of papers by leading scholars of Kant who also clearly understand Sellars. Highly recommended!"
Andrew Chignell, Princeton University, USA
