Jan 17, 2016 09:34 PM
Sellars, Concepts and Conceptual Change
http://www.ditext.com/brown/sccc.html
EXCERPT: A major theme of recent philosophy of science has been the rejection of the empiricist thesis that, with the exception of terms which play a purely formal role, the language of science derives its meaning from some, possibly quite indirect, correlation with experience. The alternative that has been proposed is that meaning is internal to each conceptual system, that terms derive their meaning from the role they play in a language, and that something akin to "meaning" flows from conceptual framework to experience. Much contemporary debate on the nature of conceptual change is a direct outgrowth of this holistic view of concepts, and much of the inconclusiveness of that debate derives from the lack of any clear understanding of what a conceptual system is, or of how conceptual systems confer meaning on their terms.
While this debate has been going on, and for some time before it began, Wilfrid Sellars has been developing an holistic theory of conceptual systems which may provide the framework needed to advance discussion. Sellars is deeply interested in these questions, and has written on them, but he has not developed the detailed case studies that has characterized much recent philosophy of science. At the same time, philosophers who proceed by means of case studies have not made use of Sellars' analysis of conceptual systems. My aim in this paper is to attempt to bridge this gap by first developing Sellars' views on meaning and conceptual frameworks, and then illustrating, all too briefly, how these views can be applied to scientific case studies....
Sellars and Nonconceptual Content
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.11...7/abstract
ABSTRACT: In this paper I take up the question of whether Wilfrid Sellars has a notion of non-conceptual perceptual content. The question is controversial, being one of the fault lines along which so-called left and right Sellarsians diverge. In the paper I try to make clear what it is in Sellars' thought that leads interpreters to such disparate conclusions. My account depends on highlighting the importance of Sellars' little discussed thesis that perception involves a systematic form of mis-categorization, one where perceivers mistake their sensory states to be properties of physical objects. I argue that the counterpart color and shape attributes of these states, which become ‘point of viewish’ when organized by the productive imagination, provides perceptual experience with its non-conceptual representational content. I then argue that this content is not a form of the mythical Given because one can only have a non-conceptual point of view on an object when an object is introduced into one's perceptual experience through the conceptual mis-taking of one's sensory states. So, while Sellars has a notion of non-conceptual representational content, it can only be salient in the context of a perceptual act that is conceptual overall....
Nonconceptual Mental Content
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conten...onceptual/
EXCERPT: The central idea behind the theory of nonconceptual mental content is that some mental states can represent the world even though the bearer of those mental states need not possess the concepts required to specify their content. This basic idea has been developed in different ways and applied to different categories of mental state. Not all of these developments and applications are consistent with each other, but each offers a challenge to the widely held view that the way a creature can represent the world is determined by its conceptual capacities....
http://www.ditext.com/brown/sccc.html
EXCERPT: A major theme of recent philosophy of science has been the rejection of the empiricist thesis that, with the exception of terms which play a purely formal role, the language of science derives its meaning from some, possibly quite indirect, correlation with experience. The alternative that has been proposed is that meaning is internal to each conceptual system, that terms derive their meaning from the role they play in a language, and that something akin to "meaning" flows from conceptual framework to experience. Much contemporary debate on the nature of conceptual change is a direct outgrowth of this holistic view of concepts, and much of the inconclusiveness of that debate derives from the lack of any clear understanding of what a conceptual system is, or of how conceptual systems confer meaning on their terms.
While this debate has been going on, and for some time before it began, Wilfrid Sellars has been developing an holistic theory of conceptual systems which may provide the framework needed to advance discussion. Sellars is deeply interested in these questions, and has written on them, but he has not developed the detailed case studies that has characterized much recent philosophy of science. At the same time, philosophers who proceed by means of case studies have not made use of Sellars' analysis of conceptual systems. My aim in this paper is to attempt to bridge this gap by first developing Sellars' views on meaning and conceptual frameworks, and then illustrating, all too briefly, how these views can be applied to scientific case studies....
Sellars and Nonconceptual Content
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.11...7/abstract
ABSTRACT: In this paper I take up the question of whether Wilfrid Sellars has a notion of non-conceptual perceptual content. The question is controversial, being one of the fault lines along which so-called left and right Sellarsians diverge. In the paper I try to make clear what it is in Sellars' thought that leads interpreters to such disparate conclusions. My account depends on highlighting the importance of Sellars' little discussed thesis that perception involves a systematic form of mis-categorization, one where perceivers mistake their sensory states to be properties of physical objects. I argue that the counterpart color and shape attributes of these states, which become ‘point of viewish’ when organized by the productive imagination, provides perceptual experience with its non-conceptual representational content. I then argue that this content is not a form of the mythical Given because one can only have a non-conceptual point of view on an object when an object is introduced into one's perceptual experience through the conceptual mis-taking of one's sensory states. So, while Sellars has a notion of non-conceptual representational content, it can only be salient in the context of a perceptual act that is conceptual overall....
Nonconceptual Mental Content
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conten...onceptual/
EXCERPT: The central idea behind the theory of nonconceptual mental content is that some mental states can represent the world even though the bearer of those mental states need not possess the concepts required to specify their content. This basic idea has been developed in different ways and applied to different categories of mental state. Not all of these developments and applications are consistent with each other, but each offers a challenge to the widely held view that the way a creature can represent the world is determined by its conceptual capacities....