SELLARS'S MISCONSTRUAL OF THE DEFENDERS OF THE GIVEN

Author(s): Timm Triplett

Source: History of Philosophy Quarterly , JANUARY 2014, Vol. 31, No. 1 (JANUARY
2014), pp. 79-99
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of North American Philosophical
Publications

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43488088

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

and University of Illinois Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to History of Philosophy Quarterly

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
History of Philosophy Quarterly
Volume 31, Number 1, January 2014

SELLAKS'S MISCONSTRUAL
OF THE DEFENDERS OF THE GIVEN

Timm Triplett

I. Introduction

Wilfrid Mind"
Mind"Sellars's
(EPM) has
(EPM)exerted
has 1963
great
exerted
influence
essayongreat
subsequent
"Empiricism
philoso-
influence and on subsequent the Philosophy philoso- of
phy, particularly in regard to its claim that the given is a myth. Many
innovative turns in philosophy - and EPM certainly counts as such -
have influence out of proportion to how thoroughly vetted their theses
and arguments have been. Perhaps this is as it should be. New ideas
deserve a hearing. But sometimes a new idea settles in as accepted
wisdom without its having been subjected to the scrutiny that would
justify its widespread acceptance. I will argue that this was the case
with the claim that "the given" is a myth, that the lack of vetting had
an unfortunate effect on the development of epistemology in the last
half of the twentieth century, and that the way in which Sellars made
his case was at least partly responsible for this. Sellars significantly
misconstrued the early twentieth-century empiricists he was criticiz-
ing. And because these philosophers and their theories were becoming
passé (partly due to EPM itself but also due to broader trends), this
misconstrual was not noted, and the thorough vetting that Sellars's
claims should have had did not take place.
For some time after the publication of EPM, foundationalism, which
relies on the idea of something given in sensory experience that serves
as the foundation for the rest of our empirical knowledge, was widely
declared to be dead. This attitude was significantly influenced by the
perceived results of EPM. While claims of foundationalism's or even epis-
temology's demise are now more commonly seen as overreactions, and
while EPM's specific arguments against the given have been subjected
to more critical scrutiny recently, the historical record needs to be set
straight. In particular, those criticisms directed to EPM's epistemological
claims that have been made have not challenged the accuracy of Sellars's

79

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
80 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

characterization of the empiricist tradition as he describes

It is a characterization that needs to be challenged, as we s
looking at the work of Bertrand Russell, C. I. Lewis, and H.
Given the influence of Sellars's claim that the given is a m
was surprisingly little detailed attention to his specific epis
arguments in EPM in the years following its publication.1
influential was Richard Rorty's discussion in Philosophy and
of Nature (1979, especially 165-92). But this was, of course,
ment rather than a critique of Sellars's arguments. This disc
the centerpiece of Rorty's well-known attack on foundatio
particular and epistemology in general. It helped solidify the
that Sellars had successfully argued that the given was a my
In the early commentary on EPM, only William Robinson (197
cally discusses EPM Part I, "An Ambiguity in Sense-Datum T
which Sellars attempts to motivate his constructive efforts b
to alleged confusions in traditional empiricism.2 It is likely
early commentators neglected Part I of EPM because it is p
as a critique of theories of sense data, and such theories w
universally rejected by the time EPM was published. The m
attention to Part I - including discussion of the so-called S
dilemma - comes from a recognition that Sellars's critique th
indeed have a broader application than simply to sense-datum
This more recent attention is welcome, but it lacks historical
Commentary on Part I focuses on the quality of Sellars's ar
under the assumption that his argument accurately charac
traditional empiricist positions it critiques. But, in fact, it
justice to those positions. It misrepresents them at crucial ju
Sellars misconstrues sense-datum theorists on two fronts,
which are significant to the ultimate outcome of his argume
given is a myth. First, he misconstrues defenders of so-called k
by acquaintance by interpreting them as making claims abo
tional knowledge, when they mean to refer to a kind of raorap
knowledge of particulars, not knowledge of facts. Second, Se
ment against sense-datum theorists depends on his attributin
the view that sensing entails propositional knowledge. But th
of epistemic structure offered by some of Sellars's immediat
sors, notably Price and Lewis, are not compatible with such a
question whether classical empiricists like Hume held this view
the scope of the present paper.) Indeed, Sellars's claim that e
in general are mired in a rather simpleminded confusion is
inattentive to the details of Price's accounts of concept acquisiti
the generation of epistemically secure beliefs from sensory exp

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SELLARSI MISCONSTRUAL 81

Although Seilars frames his Part I cri

of the leading givenists of the time
ultimate target is, and is explicitly un
nism more generally construed. Given
are epistemically basic features of our
two properties: first, they are epistem
are capable of justifying or otherwise p
propositions; second, they are epistem
positive epistemic status is not derived
or proposition.3 And Sellars means in P
of the given - a feature that does not d
ture of sense data or on a specific accou
Sellars's critique would apply as well to
of the given, such as that of Lewis, or
experience meant to avoid commitment
Roderick Chisholm. To see the continu
of Sellars's Part I critique, one may re
characterization of the given that one
stood that this given has the dual role o
epistemic independence.

II. The Inconsistent Triad

The key argument against the given in Part I of EPM is the claim t
empiricists are committed to an inconsistent triad:

A. X senses red sense content s entails x non-inferentially knows

that s is red.

B. The ability to sense sense contents is unacquired.

C. The ability to know facts of the form x is ę is acquired. (Sellars
1963, 132)

In his diagnosis of the problem, Sellars speaks of multiple "confusions"

that are "central to the tradition" (ibid., 134) and that generate "a mon-
grel resulting from a crossbreeding of two ideas" (ibid., 132) that allows
traditional empiricists to have it both ways: sensing sense contents can
be both a simple act requiring no concepts or other epistemically sophis-
ticated abilities, and, at the same time, it can serve as a noninferential
knowing that provides the basis for more complex knowledge. This is,
of course, the empiricists' attempt to have something play the dual role
required of the given. Sensing sense contents is supposed to be epistemi-
cally independent because it is describable as a mental state or condition
that simply occurs as part of conscious experience and, as such, does not
require justification. At the same time, it is supposed to somehow have

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
82 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

the epistemic power to justify other mental states, specifica

and hence be epistemically efficacious.
For reasons to be discussed, Sellars assumed that empiricists
accounted for this dual role via a commitment to Thesis A. That
is the thesis in the triad that makes the key connection between
the unacquired, nonconceptual ability to sense sense contents and
the higher-level epistemic state - propositional yet noninferential
knowledge - that such sensing is supposed to secure. But Sellars is
wrong to claim that empiricists are forced into an intractable problem
posed by the inconsistent triad, for they (or at least several of them
who were his contemporaries) would simply reject Thesis A.4 The
real problem lies not in any set of doctrines held by empiricists that
generates an inconsistency but in Sellars's own mischaracterization
of doctrines clearly stated and held by these empiricists.
It is true that Thesis A would satisfy the dual-role feature required by
givenists noted above. The act of sensing a red sense content s would be
epistemically efficacious (because it entails propositional knowledge - in
this case, noninferential knowledge that s is red), but it would also be
epistemically independent (because it does not itself require justifica-
tion). However, this is not the only way for a mental state to have this
dual role, and certainly not what prominent empiricist contemporaries
of Sellars had in mind.

III. Russell, Lewis, and Price

Compare Thesis A, which proposes that any instance of sensing entails

an instance of noninferential propositional knowledge, with the situation
as someone like Russell understands it. Russell's distinction between
knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description comes in
play here. An example of the former for Russell would be the nonconce
tual and nonpropositional direct sensory awareness of a red particul
in one's visual field.

Sellars here misconstrues Russell, taking Russellian knowledge by

acquaintance to be propositional knowledge that s is red , for example.
Sellars speaks of a "stipulated sense of know " based on such ordinary
acquaintance locutions as "Do you know John?" and then developed by
philosophers as a technical term and applied to sense contents, so that
philosophers began to speak of a particular, such as a color patch, being
known (Sellars 1963, 130). Sellars claims that, in this stipulated use of
know , "to say of a sense content - a colour patch, for example - that it
was 'known' would be to say that some fact about it was non-inferentially
known, e. g. that it was red" (ibid., Sellars's emphases).

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SELLARSI MISCONSTRUAL 83

But this just gets wrong the idea the

quaintance wanted to convey. Russell is, in
to identify some sort of no/ipropositio
any fact:

The particular shade of colour that I am seeing may have many

things said about it - I may say that it is brown, that it is rather dark,
and so on. But such statements, though they make me know truths
about the colour, do not make me know the colour itself any better
than I did before: so far as concerns knowledge of the colour itself, as
opposed to knowledge of truths about it, I know the colour perfectly
and completely when I see it, and no further knowledge of it itself is
even theoretically possible. (Russell 1959, 46-47)
Sellars fails to recognize or engage with Russell's claim about non-
propositional knowledge because he assumes without argument that all
knowledge must have a propositional structure: "What is known , even
in non-inferential knowledge, is facts rather than particulars" (Sellars
1963, 128, Sellars's emphases). Under that assumption, if empiricists
like Russell are claiming any sort of knowledge by acquaintance that
is acquired simply by the having of sensory experiences, then such
knowledge must be propositional in structure, and we have something
like Thesis A. But since Russell is quite explicit that the knowledge he
is talking about is not propositional, nothing like Thesis A follows from
Russell's position. And that position remains perfectly compatible with
empiricist Theses B and C. It can allow that the unacquired ability to
sense sense contents, for example, in animals and young children, does
not commit us to attributing propositional knowledge to them. The abil-
ity to have propositional knowledge could still be acquired rather than
innate and dependent for its possibility on the acquisition of empirical
concepts. (Although infants and animals provide relatively clear-cut cas-
es of sensing that occurs independently of any propositional knowing, it
is clear that Russell does not want to confine knowledge by acquaintance
to beings who lack the capacity to entertain and assess propositions. For
Russell, knowledge by acquaintance is something applicable to adult
humans. In the above quote, it is he himself, presumably as a stand-in
for adult human knowers in general, who is acquainted with the color
of the table, independently of any propositional knowledge he may have
about the table.)

Of course, it would be possible to challenge Russell by arguing against

the very possibility of Russellian knowledge by acquaintance. But as noted,
Sellars does not accurately characterize or seem to recognize Russell's
actual view. And Sellars merely states, and never argues for, his core as-
sumption that all knowledge must be propositional.5 So instead of the sort

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
84 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

of engagement with Russell that the latter's knowledge-by-a

claim could certainly use, we get the construction of a pseu
that Russell could simply wave off by noting that he makes no
as is required for an inconsistent triad to be generated.6
Sellars is not simply failing to engage with one passage f
sell. He is disregarding a major theme developed in some d
other twentieth-century empiricists. C. I. Lewis and H. H.
particularly relevant examples, not only because of their d
fenses of the given but because both were teachers of Sellars, w
therefore, hardly have been unaware of their views.7 Price, for
distinguishes "apprehension that " from "apprehension of -
"directed upon particular existents , e.g. this colour-patch or th
that visual image" and properly designated " acquaintance "
5, Price's emphases).8 One of the fundamental tenets of C.
epistemology is the clear and significant divide between wh
to us in sensory experience and our conceptual abilities:
The two elements to be distinguished in knowledge are the co
which is the product of the activity of thought, and the sens
given, which is independent of such activity. . . . The pure conc
the content of the given are mutually independent; neither lim
other. . . . Empirical truth, or knowledge of the objective arises thr
conceptual interpretation of the given. (Lewis 1956, 37)9

Not only is Thesis A not anywhere affirmed by these empir

their distinctions noted here indicate the reason they would
The mutual independence of the sensuously given and the
suggests, what seems plausible in any case, that there can
without conceptualization, in the animal or young child, for
And since conceptualization is a prerequisite for propositio
edge, this is in effect a denial of Thesis A.
In the background for these empiricists is a foundationalist p
how some one state of consciousness (specifically, sensory co
could play the dual role required of the given: that it have the
justify perceptual propositions without requiring independen
tion itself. In this picture, sensory experiences are kinds of
that are rich, if epistemically primitive, aspects of virtually
ment of conscious experience. They occur in animals and inf
to the acquisition of concepts. Since concepts are prerequisit
propositional knowledge and since sensory experience as such
picture, nonconceptual, the occurrence of sensory experienc
entail propositional knowledge or, indeed, justified belief of
But once concepts are acquired, the elements are in place f
tional knowledge and justified belief. For example, a child w

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SELLARSI MISCONSTRUAL 85

concept red and has the sensory experie

able to have the justified belief that this
conceptual sophistication, propositional kn
sensory experience - belief may be withh
fied but false.) The sensory experience i
state that provides the foundation for
propositional knowledge.
Obviously, this picture needs filling
concepts acquired before there is any
the precise content of the justified belief
subject's experience or about something
an occurrent sensory experience and posse
what additional conditions are necessar
tional belief? Does the requirement that
before there can be any propositional k
condition that undermines the alleged
experience? These are all important questi
satisfactory foundationalist theory can be
needs filling out is a far cry from havi
inconsistency in the doctrine of the given
And Price and Lewis in particular did
is especially significant regarding Sellar
EPM because not only was Sellars, as no
made use of Price's work, in another cont
looking at Price's epistemological work
he fills out the foundationalist picture
oped accounts of concept acquisition and
propositions can be justified by nonpro
with sensory particulars.
In Thinking and Experience , Price pr
calibrated account of how concepts are
knowledge. He posits resemblances and
events as features of the world. For exam
recur over and over. That these repetiti
what makes conceptual cognition possib
simply from the experience of colors, sou
features. Rather, a more basic kind of
quisition of any concepts. Price develops
most fundamental of all intellectual pr
is, in turn, divided into primary and s
recognition can occur as a preverbal pr
(ibid., 37). Indeed, its prior existence is

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
86 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

language: "Unless we did recognize words pre-verbally, verb

nition would not be possible, and no other kind of verbalized i
operation would be possible either" (ibid., 38). 11 A characte
nized via primary recognition is an example of something
designated as the given (ibid., 47).12 Only after one has lear
recognition of instances can basic concepts be acquired (ibi
Regarding the justification of ordinary beliefs about mat
on the basis of sensory evidence, Price presented a book-le
attempting to do just that. Price's aim in Perception is "to exa
experiences in the way of seeing and touching upon which
concerning material things are based, and to inquire in wha
what extent they justify these beliefs" (1964, 2). He tells a qui
story that begins with nonpropositional acquaintance und
sensing sense-data: "Visual sensing will simply be the acqua
colour-patches, auditory sensing the acquaintance with sounds,
(ibid., 5). Like Russell, Price sees this acquaintance or sensin
of apprehension or knowing" (ibid., 49). So it is cogniti vely sig
just a causal precursor to cognitively significant mental sta
Russell, Price is clear that this is a nonpropositional form of k
That Price sees sensing (acquaintance) as epistemically ind
is clear from his remark that a state of sensory awarene
moment "is not the result of any previous intellectual process
Acquaintance is a kind of "standing awareness" that is "com
one moment" (ibid., 125, Price's emphasis). It is not "discur
soning is," and thus not an inference from one state or claim
(ibid.). Nor does it entail that the subject form some belief abo
sensed: "Sensing is not a sufficient (though it is a necessary) c
holding beliefs about [a material object]. Some further men
attitude is needed" (ibid., 22). In explaining what further is ne
offers a multistaged account describing the role sense-data pla
and, with varying degrees of assurance, justifying ordinary b
material objects. (The details of this epistemic ascent need not
here since Sellars's critique focuses on Thesis A and the rela
an act of sensing and a proposition about the sensed quality
a proposition about a material object.)
Let me draw from this condensed summary of Price's w
points relevant to Sellars's treatment of empiricism in Pa
Sellars has charged empiricists with a confused and incon
of views that includes Thesis A - the claim that sensing a
entails having noninferential propositional knowledge conc
particular. But Thesis A is certainly not something to wh
committed. Indeed, Price's accounts above entail the falsity
and of other attempts to tie sensing logically or semantically

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SELLARSI MISCONSTRUAL 87

tional knowledge. Price's discussion of

independent mental act or process alrea
any claim that it must entail that the
proposition. And his account of concept
independence of sensing and doxastic s
of acquaintance or primary recognitio
concept formation.14 Without concepts, a
entertain a proposition. Thus, sensing
intellectual or cognitive process - can a
any propositional knowledge, contrary to
dent argument from Sellars that such a p
this point by itself is enough to show t
afoul of Sellars's inconsistent triad.

In one passage just prior to his statement of the inconsistent triad,

Sellars does recognize that sense-datum philosophers have claimed that
givenness can be equated with simply being conscious and that this state,
which "a new-born babe, alive and kicking" can be in, does not presuppose
any prior learning or capacity for propositional knowledge (Sellars 1963,
131).15 This can seem to be an acknowledgment by Sellars of the non-
conceptual knowledge of (or acquaintance with) particulars about which
Russell and Price speak. But instead of considering the potential efficacy
of this approach, Sellars uses it to set up the inconsistent triad and claim
that empiricists are ensnared in it. For, Sellars says, if empiricists insist
that the ability to sense sense contents is unacquired, then they must
say that propositional knowledge concerning those sense contents (in Sel-
lars's example, noninferential knowledge that sense content s is red) is
unacquired (ibid.). And since empiricists have been committed to the view
that such knowledge is not unacquired and presupposes the acquisition
of concepts, Sellars takes them to be committed to the inconsistent triad,
which he immediately proceeds to spell out.
But notice that Sellars is here imputing to empiricists Thesis A. That
is the only way in which the logic of Sellars's argument will work. It is
true that empiricists who hold sensing to be an unacquired ability can
"analyse x senses red sense content s as x non-inferentially knows that
s is red " only if they also take knowledge that s is red to be unacquired
(Sellars 1963, 131). But the proffered analysis that Sellars attributes
to empiricists is simply a statement of Thesis A. Where is the evidence
that any empiricists are committed to such an analysis? He nowhere
cites such evidence from Price, Russell, or anyone else and ignores Price's
account of concept acquisition, which entails the falsity of Thesis A.16
Having noted Price's theory in some detail, we can note more
briefly that Lewis's version of givenism also appears incompatible

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
88 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

with Thesis A. While Price and Lewis differ in important re

same elements that indicate that Price would reject Thesis
place in the case of Lewis. For Lewis, it is essential that th
immediate apprehension of the given that is independent of
ity of thought" and not limited by it (Lewis 1956, 37). Thou
rise to knowledge when conceptually interpreted, it is clea
experience of the given does not entail the presence of pro
knowledge. Thus, Thesis A is avoided.

IV. Why the Misconstrual?

We have seen that Sellars misconstrues Russell and Price by taking t

acquaintance doctrine to refer to propositional knowledge, when bo
philosophers are quite explicit that acquaintance is to be understood
as the raorcpropositional knowledge or apprehension of particulars. A
Sellars seems to misconstrue the developed views of Price and Lewis
insisting on finding in them a commitment to Thesis A, in spite of t
evidence in these empiricists' work that they would reject this thesi
(Or, if Sellars has other empiricists than Price and Lewis in mind i
framing the inconsistent triad, why does he neglect the views of the
important contemporaries?)
Such a failure to engage fully with the empiricism he claims to ha
shown to rely on mythical foundations is striking. What could expla
it? I believe that the explanation has to lie in Sellars's own deepest co
mitments. Given those commitments, it may have appeared to him th
engaging with all the details of specific empiricist definitions and the
ries was unnecessary or even that, to avoid incoherence or untenabilit
the versions of empiricism offered by Price and other contemporari
would need to be recharacterized in terms of the empiricist theses S
lars focuses on in EPM.

In considering the consequences for the empiricist of giving up one or

more of the claims in the inconsistent triad, Sellars does briefly consider
the view that would result from rejecting Thesis A (without suggesting
that any empiricist actually did reject it). What he says about this is
quite instructive and points to the fundamental commitment that may
explain his treatment of specific empiricist doctrines. After presenting
the inconsistent triad and the problem this poses for empiricists, Sel-
lars asks what the empiricist could do in response and answers on the
empiricist's behalf:
He can abandon [Thesis] A, in which case the sensing of sense contents
becomes a noncognitive fact - a noncognitive fact, to be sure which
may be a necessary condition, even a logically necessary condition,

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SELLARSI MISCONSTRUAL 89

of non-inferential knowledge, but a fact

constitute this knowledge. (Sellars 1963,
The immediate question a traditional
this assertion is why one should think it
that there is no entailment relation be
knowledge, must it follow that there c
significant relation between them? W
from the realm of the cognitive and lo
his positive account, locates it - as a cau
knowledge, but not as itself a kind of a
justifier of known propositions?
Sellars does not offer an answer to th
an unargued-for commitment to the v
significance must be understood in ter
structured. We have already noted one
his claim that there is no knowledge o
discussing the implications of abandon
somewhat less restrictive formulation o
in principle, have epistemological sign
right, only if they entail propositiona
being sensed. The passage quoted just a
there is no such entailment relation, t
temological significance.
In this passage, Sellars simply denies w
that there can be significant epistemol
and propositional knowledge short of en
engage argumentatively with the theories
Does this just make it a wash between f
cognitive significance and justificatory
denying this, with competing basic int
leading to a stalemate? Perhaps. But ev
defeat for Sellars's claim to have shown
Does Sellars elsewhere in EPM make a case against the sort of
position that Price articulates? The present analysis has focused on Sel-
lars's argument in Part I of EPM, but the epistemological culmination
of EPM is to be found in Part VIII ("Does Empirical Knowledge Have a
Foundation?"). However, the argument of that part depends crucially on
Sellars's earlier arguments in EPM. In Part VIII, Sellars considers how
foundationalists have regarded some statements (epistemically basic
ones) as having intrinsic credibility. His criticism of this idea rests on
his Part I point that any claim to such intrinsic credibility relies on a
notion of nonlinguistic understanding or awareness that embodies the

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
90 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

alleged confusion between nonpropositional sensings that c

epistemically significant role and propositional beliefs that
pable of justifying other beliefs, are themselves in need of i
justification.18
Indeed, in developing this case, Sellars presents a stronge
ment of his core commitment that is helpful in suggesting
behind it:

The essential point is that in characterizing an episode or a state as

that of knowing , we are not giving an empirical description of that
episode or state; we are placing it in the logical space of reasons, of
justifying and being able to justify what one says. (Sellars 1963, 169,
Sellars's emphasis)
Sensings can presumably be given empirical descriptions in terms
of the impact of environmental stimuli on a person's sensory system.
Sellars's position is that this is the only role sensing can have - in par-
ticular, it cannot have the epistemological role of providing reasons for
belief. In effect, anything that constitutes a reason has to be something
propositionally structured - something that can serve as a premise in
an argument. Sensings do not have that kind of structure.19 Sellars's
statement allows one to speculate a bit on the reasons he did not engage
with the detailed views of empiricists like Price. We typically think of
reasons in support of a belief in terms of propositions that offer evidence
for that belief. One justifies what one says by offering an argument -
premises in support of the conclusion. Those premises, in turn, may be
justified by new premises, all of this propositionally structured. How
could something not propositionally structured serve to provide a reason
for a propositionally structured belief? Hence, Sellars's core assumption:
anything providing reasons in support of a proposition must be, or at
least entail, something propositionally structured.20
Presumably, Sellars regarded this assumption as itself so obvious
that he took it as reasonable, perhaps even charitable, to reconstruct the
views of Russell and other contemporary empiricists. This may explain
Sellars's restructuring of Russell's acquaintance theory into the view
that what is known by acquaintance is not a particular but a proposi-
tion. It may also explain why Sellars might have believed that the only
reasonable sense to be made of empiricist accounts like that of Price
would be to attribute to them something like Thesis A.
But Sellars's own assumption is itself never justified. It is asserted
rather than defended. Why should we think it is true? Why rule out of
court, without discussion, the idea of sensings as epistemically efficacious
yet independent justifiers? To thus describe a sensing is, undoubtedly,
to assign it a normative status and not merely to provide an empirical

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SELLARSI MISCONSTRUAL 91

description. But why could not such a

a sensory state? A sensation like a pain,
account be a kind of direct awareness o
current conscious state. In itself, it wou
awareness that an infant might have. B
competent subject, this awareness could
her belief that she is in pain or that s
experience could offer her a reason for
space of reasons even if that experience is
and not related to her belief by logical e
Sellar s , of course, rejects everything ab
Pricean picture. But he does not exami
wrong with the particulars. Because of
who held it, he does not engage with it. He
of his general assumption that anything
entail or constitute propositionally str
gives us, then, is an intriguing alternat
picture, but not a refutation of it.
Even if Sellars reconstructed these em
of making them compatible with a core
controvertible, it is ultimately not char
their explicit statements and developed vi
tions to claim that they are ensnared i
and confusions. This is not to say that
point-by-point rebuttal of Price and Lew
alternative. Sellars had every right to
important contribution. But he could an
mischaracterizing his opponents in a w
appear more implausible than they wer

V. Consequences of Sellars's Misconstrual

Sellars's claim that his empiricist predecessors were fundamentally

committed to inconsistent claims had significant consequences. If Sellars
had raised the question how a nonpropositional state or experience could
serve as a justifier of propositions, this would have invited responses
and encouraged discussion. But it would not have supported his char-
acterization of the given as a myth. Instead, claiming that traditional
empiricism was mired in an intractable inconsistency allowed Sellars to
declare that the given was indeed a myth - that he had effectively demol-
ished a key pillar of empiricism.21 And that declaration - perhaps EPM's
most enduring legacy - helped encourage the view that foundationalism
was dead and constrict the discussion of acceptable theories concerning

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
92 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

the structure of epistemic justification. Rorty's use of Sellar

example, when he approvingly codifies Sellars's core assumpt
"there is ... no such thing as justification which is not a relation
propositions") to declare the demise of foundationalist app
epistemology became widely influential (Rorty 1979, 183).22
an energetic debate between foundationalism and newly em
proaches to epistemic justification, including Sellars's own
alternative to both foundationalism and coherentism, there
sense that those philosophers who did continue to try to dev
dationalist accounts simply did not realize that their time
Even with regard to recent discussions of Sellarsian epist
which finally include some attention to Part I of EPM, critics h
Sellars's construal of his empiricist predecessors at face value
for ways to rescue givenist and foundationalist approaches
problematic "dilemma" that Sellars was assumed to have ide
Fortunately, givenist and foundationalist accounts hav
returned to respectability, and the debate is now considera
open than when the view held sway that these approaches
longer viable. Indeed, many of the foundationalist accounts
developed go some way toward vindicating the general app
philosopher like Price, even if they do not mention Price by
talking of vindication, I do not mean that Price and the late
tionalists have been shown to have the superior view to Se
that there are substantive and historical grounds for thinkin
general approach, including the advocacy of a given with its
of epistemic efficacy and independence, has not been refute
On substantive grounds, we see the gaps in Sellars's argu
illustrate his failure to close the case against the given. On
grounds, we see the revival of an approach that not long ag
pronounced moribund. The contemporary versions of this approach
understandably differ from Price's in terminology and levels of detail
(and differ among themselves as well in these respects). But they are
congruent with Price's overall approach and can be seen as contemporary
efforts to give the same sort of account of empirical justification that
Price attempted. What they share in common with Price are the ideas
that there can be epistemically significant nonconceptual or nonpropo-
sitional mental states that can have a justificatory role in the support
of perceptual and other ordinary beliefs about the external world; that
these mental states prominently include sensory information, data, or
experiences; and that the justificatory relations between the nonpropo-
sitional and the propositional are distinct from logical, semantic, and
causal entailments. Instead of positing such entailments, these theories

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SELLARSI MISCONSTRUAL 93

consider the sensory information to f

port propositions to varying degrees of
These recent revivals of traditional
of favor provide another illustration
philosophy, that ideas do not always pro
that what are, in fact, well-developed vi
and critical consideration are sometimes
in favor of new and more exciting pe
to endorse the Kuhnian suggestion th
fashion and blinding paradigms must p
is a greater chance than ever for fruitfu
perspectives regarding the structure o

VI. A Final Assessment

Sellars's signal achievement in epistemology was to articulate an original

alternative to the foundationalist and coherentist theories that, prior
to Sellars, had been thought to exhaust the reasonable possibilitie
for an account of the structure of epistemic justification. That was a
important contribution, but a distinct one from having shown the given
to be a myth. That the historical record needs to be corrected shoul
not take away from Sellars's substantive and deservedly influential
contributions to philosophy.26

University of New Hampshire

NOTES

1. For early (before 1980) discussions of Sellars's epistemological cla

in EPM, see Cornman 1972, Delaney 1977, Firth 1964, Grimm 1959, Rob
1975, and Rorty 1979.
2. See note 24 below for discussions of Robinson and of later criticisms of
Part I of EPM.

3. Willem deVries and I introduced this terminology in our commentary

on EPM (deVries and Triplett 2000, xxvi.)
4. Sellars does say that not all sense-datum theorists have been guilty of all
the confusions he has noted (1963, 134). In Part II of EPM, he offers a separate
critique of A. J. Ayer's "heterodox" account of sense data. This account, accord-
ing to which sense-datum language semantically entails ordinary perceptual
language, need not concern us here. If there are any additional sense-datum
theorists whom Sellars had in mind, he never mentions them, nor does he offer

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
94 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

an account of other sense-datum theories that support givenism

ing the confusions noted in Part I. It is reasonable to assume tha
criticisms of sense-datum theories found in EPM cover all the variants Sellars
took to be significant. Otherwise, he would not have been able to claim that
givenism in all its varieties had been shown to be a myth.
5. Later in EPM, Sellars does offer a more elaborate reiteration of this point.
This elaboration is discussed in section IV of the present paper. As we will see,
the debate does not turn on terminological issues such as whether the alleged
nonpropositional epistemic state deserves the label "knowledge." Sellars's cri-
tique of the empiricist view extends to any characterization of nonpropositional
states that would allow them to count as epistemological givens with the dual
features of epistemic independence and epistemic efficaciousness.
6. Sellars 1974 includes a lengthy discussion of Russell on knowledge by
acquaintance. While Sellars is more accurate here than in EPM in acknowledg-
ing that Russell does not identify knowledge by acquaintance with knowledge
of facts, he encourages us to understand Russell as holding the view that
knowledge by acquaintance is conceptually tied to propositional knowledge that
the object of acquaintance "is of a certain kind or that it has a certain intrinsic
nature" (Sellars 1974, 65). He even sees Russell as holding that, when one is
acquainted with a red sense-datum, for example, one knows it as red stuff - as
a sorting of William James's "primal stuff' out of which everything is made
(ibid., 66-67). Indeed, acquaintance on this interpretation yields "perfect and
complete knowledge of the intrinsic nature of particulars ... in the case of sense
data" (ibid., 67-68). In his commentary on Sellars's paper, Romane Clark notes
the implausibility of attributing such a view to Russell since, in The Problems
of Philosophy , Russell leaves it an open question what sort of entity it is that
the subject is acquainted with (Clark 1974, 104-5). In Clark's assessment, "my
preference is to save [Russell] from the charge of logical schizophrenia at the
price of charging Sellars with misunderstanding" (ibid., 103).
7. Lewis taught Sellars at Harvard, Price at Oxford. For details, see deVries
2005, 3-5.
8. Citations are to the 1964 edition of Perception, which was originally
published in 1932.
9. Lewis does reserve the term "knowledge" for propositionally structured
mental states, and in this way disagrees with Russell and Price and would seem
to agree with Sellars. But this is a terminological matter only. Although Lewis
prefers to reserve the term "knowledge" for a higher epistemological order, it
is essential to him that there be an immediate apprehension of the given that
constitutes an epistemic state and serves as the evidential basis for empirical
knowledge: "Our empirical knowledge rises as a structure of enormous com-
plexity, most parts of which are stabilized in measure by their mutual support,
but all of which rest, at bottom, on direct findings of sense" (Lewis 1946, 171).
Lewis refers to the "immediate apprehensions of sense" as being "self-justifying
or self-evident" (ibid., 28). Sellars, by contrast, must deny any epistemic sig-
nificance to sensory states as such. As he makes clear in the later sections of

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SELLARSI MISCONSTRUAL 95

EPM, sensations (Seilars calls them "impres

an evidential role in the explanation of per
10. In Part VIII of EPM, Sellars discusses t
in Price 1953.

11 . Price does not mean that primary recognition is a process occurring only
in infralinguals. "Recognition is not like the ladder which we can kick away
once we have used it to climb with. It is essential not merely to the acquisition
of concepts, but to their possession when acquired" (1953, 35). My interest here,
however, is in Price's account of recognition as a nonconceptual cognitive state
that can and does occur prior to the acquisition of concepts and, hence, prior to
the ability to form beliefs about or know propositions.
12. Writing in 1953, Price notes that it would have been called the given
"in earlier days." Price is acknowledging the unpopularity of the language of
the given by this time - language he himself had used in Perception in 1932.
13. It is "directed upon particular existents" as opposed to facts (Price
1964, 5).
14. Sensing (acquaintance) must be at least an element of primary recog-
nition. But there is evidence that Price uses the phrase "primary recognition"
in Thinking and Experience to refer to the same cognitive state he called "ac-
quaintance" in Perception. Both are described as nonconceptual awareness of
the given (Price 1964 [1932], 3; 1953, 47), both are said to be a kind of knowing
or knowledge of particulars (1964, 49; 1953, 36), and, where primary recogni-
tion is the "fundamental" intellectual process, acquaintance is "ultimate" and
presupposes no prior cognition (1953, 35; 1964, 3.) Also, the term "acquaintance"
is not used at all in Thinking and Experience , suggesting that Price is using
another term in that work to refer to this basic epistemic state.
15. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for this journal for directing my
attention to this passage.
16. The only sense-datum theorist named in EPM Part I is G. E. Moore
(Sellars 1963, 130), in a context not relevant to Thesis A.
17. Sellarsi wording can suggest that the only empiricist stance he is ex-
cluding is one that holds that sensing constitutes noninferential propositional
knowledge. But if Sellars were rejecting only the constitution view, he would not
be responding to the givenist position that sensings are Tio/zpropositional states
that have an epistemic role in justifying propositional knowledge. Also, if the
passage is really to describe, as Sellars intends, the consequences of rejecting
Thesis A, his suggestion that sensings might be a logically necessary condition
for noninferential knowledge has to be understood in a way different from the
logical entailment mentioned in Thesis A. Presumably he has in mind some
general logical constraint, for example, that any subject possessing perceptual
propositional knowledge must be a being capable of having sensations: one
cannot see that the apple is red without having sensations of red. (Of course,
Sellars is not committing himself to any such general claim, only offering it as a
possibility.) In any case, Sellarsi point that sensing would have to be understood

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
96 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

as a noncognitive fact suggests that he does have in mind what he

for his antigivenist point to be made: that the denial of Thesis A
view that allows the givenist no opening. Without Thesis A, ther
cognitive or epistemologica! significance to sensings.
18. For details on the extended course of Sellars's argument, se
and Triplett 2000, chap. 8, especially our reconstruction of Sella
argument against the given," 104-5.
19. Sellars's point in this passage must be taken to apply to chara
of sensings not just as "knowings" but also as justifiers or other e
significant states or processes, lest his point not have the genera
against all forms of givenism. Sellars's articulation of what he ca
logical nominalism" makes an even stronger claim along the sam
awareness . . . even of particulars - is a linguistic affair" (1963, 1
emphasis). My interest here is in the less radical (and more plausi
suggested by Sellars's discussion of Thesis A: that an act of sens
least entail propositional knowledge about what is being sensed.
20. To provide reasons in support of p is to be epistemically effi
respect to p. The core assumption may, thus, also be understood as th
for something to be epistemically efficacious, it must either be a pro
entail a proposition.
21. "I have used a myth [Sellars's ťmyth of Jones'] to kill a myth - t
of the Given" (Sellars 1963, 195).
22. The sense of foundationalism's demise was strong enough t
Cornman could write in 1977: "At present, R. M. Chisholm stands
alone, as the embattled defender of foundationalism" (287). Two years
publication of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, in conjunctio
patible trends in Europe, spread the idea of the nonviability of the fo
approach to knowledge even beyond the confines of academic philo
23. The claim that Sellars has created a dilemma for givenism an
tionalism can be found in, for example, Bergmann 2006; Bonjour
and 2006; Fales 1996; Lyons 2008; Poston 2007; Russell 2012; and Steup 2000.
Some of these discussions, including those noted here by BonJour (since 1999),
Fales, Poston, Russell, and Steup, are foundationalist-friendly and argue that the
dilemma can be overcome. Talk of a "dilemma" is strictly inaccurate as applied to
EPM Part I. However, a destructive dilemma is derivable from the inconsistent
triad of Sellars's actual formulation as follows: If empiricism is true, then A &
B & C. ~A v ~B v ~C. Therefore, empiricism is false. But it would be better to
avoid the "dilemma" language that puts givenism and foundationalism on the
defensive from the start and that derives from a mischaracterization of these
approaches.
24. Robinson 1975 is the only early commentary on the epistemological
claims in EPM that mentions Price (Robinson 1975, 106n). But Robinson might
have profited from more detailed attention to Price. The thrust of Robinson's
argument against Sellars is that Sellars's critique of the given neglects some

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SELLARSI MISCONSTRUAL 97

plausible ways of explicating how the giv

though the language of Robinson in articula
different from that of Price, in part becaus
possible to Sellars's language, it seems reas
a historical example of the type of givenis
the net of Sellars's criticisms (for Robinson'
framework, see ibid., 107). If so, then Robin
his own critique of Sellars with this historic
discussions, while neither Price nor Lewis is
porary foundationalists have recognized P
is an especially notable example. In his ear
an influential antifoundationalist epistemolo
Sellars (BonJour 1985). He has since come
of a foundationalist approach in which he
"the pioneering work of Price" (BonJour 199
point to any ways in which Sellars mischa
25. Examples of such foundationalist ap
Chalmers 2003, Fales 1996, Fumerton 198
Markie 2006, McGrew 1995, and Moser 19
noteworthy in drawing attention to Thesis A
to rejecting that thesis himself, Chalmers n
theorists suggests that many of them would
ers's parenthetical remark does not offer na
of his reading. But the discussion of Russ
present paper suggests that Chalmers's re
26. I wish to thank two anonymous referee
helpful comments. Thanks are due also to Pa
especially, for many conversations and exc
to Willem deVries.

REFERENCES

Bergmann, Michael. 2006. "BonJour's Dilemma." Philosophical Stud

679-93.

BonJour, Laurence. 1985. The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambrid

MA: Harvard University Press.

Philosophical Perspectives 13, Epistemology

Chalmers, David. 2003. "The Content and

In Consciousness: New Philosophical Pers
and Aleksandar Jokic, 220-72. New York

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
98 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

Chisholm, Roderick. 1977. Theory of Knowledge. 2d ed. Englewood

Prentice Hall.

Clark, Romane. 1974. "Ontology and the Philosophy of Mind in Sellars' Critique
of Russell." In Bertrand Russell's Philosophy , edited by G. Nakhnikian,
101-16. New York: Harper & Row.
Cornman, James. 1972. "Materialism and Some Myths about Some Givens."
The Monist 56: 215-33.

Justification " American Philosophical Q

Delaney, C. F. 1977. "Theory of Knowledge
the Philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars , edited b
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Pre
deVries, Willem. 2005. Wilfrid Sellars. Ch
deVries, Willem, and Timm Triplett. 2000
Reading Wilfrid Sellars's "Empiricism an
napolis, IN: Hackett.
Fales, Evan. 1996. A Defense of the Given.
Firth, Roderick. 1964. "Coherence, Certain
of Philosophy 61: 545-57.
Fumerton, Richard. 1985. Metaphysical an
ception. Lincoln: University of Nebrask
Goldman, Alan. 2004. "Epistemological Fo
Beliefs?" American Philosophical Quarte
Grimm, Robert. 1959. "A Note on 'Empir
Philosophical Studies 10: 45-48.
Hobson, Kenneth. 2008. "Foundational Bel
tion." Synthese 164: 117-39.
Lewis, C. I. 1946. An Analysis of Knowle
Court.

1929.

Lyons, Jack. 2008. "Evidence, Experience, and Externalism." Australasian

Journal of Philosophy 86: 461-79.
Markie, Peter. 2006. "Epistemically Appropriate Perceptual Belief." NOUS 40:
118-42.

McGrew, Timothy. 1995. The Foundations of Knowledge. Lanham, MD: Litt

field Adams.

Moser, Paul. 1989. Knowledge and Evidence. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SELLARSI MISCONSTRUAL 99

Poston, Ted. 2007. "Acquaintance and the Pr

sophical Studies 132: 331-46.
Price, H. H. 1953. Thinking and Experience

Robinson, William. 1975. "The Legend of the

Reality: Studies in Honor of Wilfrid Sellars ,
83-108. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.
Rorty, Richard. 1979. Philosophy and the
Princeton University Press.
Russell, Bertrand. 1959. The Problems of Philo
Press. Originally published 1912.
Russell, Bruce. 2012. "Rock Bottom: Coherentis
of Philosophy 50: 94-111.
Sellars, Wilfrid. 1963. "Empiricism and the
Perception and Reality. London: Routledg

sell's Philosophy , edited by G. Nakhnikian, 57-1

Steup, Matthias. 2000. "Unrestricted Foundati
lemma." Grazer Philosophische Studien 20: 75

This content downloaded from

217.65.126.2 on Sat, 24 Jun 2023 14:47:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms