Episode 154: Wilfrid Sellars on the Myth of the Given
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast · Mark Linsenmayer
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Show Notes
On "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" (1956).
Is knowledge based on a "foundation," as Descartes, Locke, et al. thought? Sellars says no: The allegedly basic elements upon which knowledge would be built either have to be propositions, in which case they involve a lot of prior knowledge involved in language use and so aren't really basic, or they're "raw feels," in which case they can't actually serve as reasons for anything; reasons have to be propositional. With guest Lawrence Dallman.
End song: "Senses on Fire" by Mercury Rev. Check out the interview with singer Jonathan Donahue in Nakedly Examined Music ep. 14.