Wilfrid Sellars’s Metaphilosophy: Two Images and the Philosophy in Between

Bringing together essays on Wilfrid Sellars’s distinction between the manifest and scientific image and on his synoptic vision of philosophy’s role in mitigating their clash and aiding their fusion, this volume sheds new light on some of the most intricate, perplexing, and far-reaching aspects of his philosophy.

An international team of leading and rising scholars offers a systematic treatment of Sellars’s metaphilosophy and its implications, drawing on the concepts introduced in his seminal work, Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man. The volume is divided into four parts. The first three chapters delve into the images themselves, exploring their seemingly irresolvable tension and the philosophical challenges in attempting to overcome it. Essays in the second block address the metaphilosophical question of how the ever-evolving scientific image reshapes the nature and scope of philosophical inquiry, with a focus on the metaphysical and ontological consequences of attempts to fuse the two images. Authors of the third part revisit Sellars’s philosophy through historical reinterpretations, drawing mainly on Kant, logical empiricism, and logical atomism. The final three chapters turn to Sellars’s own conceptual innovations, such as conceptual frameworks and the Space of Reasons.

Attesting to his extensive legacy as a key figure in 20th-century analytic philosophy, this collection illuminates Sellars’s challenging ideas in a clear, profound, and imaginative way.

László Kocsis is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pécs, Hungary.

Krisztián Pete is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pécs, Hungary.