This essay was written for a class, History of Analytic Philosophy Part II, at University of California, Irvine. The course was taught by Professor Jeremy Heis in the Spring Quarter of 2019.

I know that what I’ve written here loses a lot of nuance that is present in Sellars’ EPM, though I think it still reflects a basic comprehension of the essay.

The Buck Stops in the Space of Reasons

Wilfred Sellars introduces a novel way of understanding how people come to possess concepts in his paper “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind”.  In the paper, Sellars describes how, to possess certain basic concepts, people need to possess multiple other concepts and empirical facts.  I will begin by describing that view.  Then, I will discuss how this might appear to create a problem of infinite regress whereby we continue to require more and more concepts and fail to ever come to possess even basic concepts.  I will then discuss how Sellars’ account does not have such a problem through a discussion of his concept holism.  Throughout the paper, I will be referencing Sellar’s story of John, who sells ties in a tie shop.[1]

Concepts Depend on Other Concepts and Distinctions

Sellars describes a thought experiment in which a man, John, is selling a tie, and does not yet fully understand the concept <being green> (which I will interchangeably refer to as the concept <green>).  He is not used to the incandescent light in his shop, so he mistakes a blue tie for a green tie (because the yellow light makes the blue tie appear green to him).  “This tie is green,” he might say about the blue tie.  He is quickly corrected by someone who knows better—she takes him outside to the sunlight and shows him how the tie looks blue outside.

            John is confused—to him, the tie that was green is now blue!  But the knowledgeable person corrects him: “Ties look different colors depending on the lighting conditions.  Something is its proper color under sunlight, and only if your eyes work normally, for example, being colorblind might interfere with your ability to properly report colors.”  John is introduced to the concept of <looks green> as opposed to <being green>.  He is also introduced to concepts of <standard conditions> and <standard observers> (as opposed to nonstandard versions).  He is told that the standard lighting condition is ‘sunlight’ and can be told that he is a standard observer because he is ‘not colorblind’ and ‘reports colors as he should’.  For John to be able to possess the concept <green> and properly report on it, Sellars has argued that John would need the other concepts and empirical knowledge about whether or not the standards are being met.  <Green> seeming to be a very basic example, something similar is argued/implied to occur for all other concepts.

Basic Questions for Sellars’ Account

1.         Sellars’ account of concept possession requiring possession of other concepts might raise questions about the coherence of his view.  If concepts require other concepts, do we get into an infinite regression of concept possession?  We described how John has been taught that <green> “is a reliable symptom of” <looking green> under standard conditions for standard observers—but do <looking green> or <standard conditions> themselves require John to know that they are reliable symptoms of <H>, which in turn requires <I>, and so on?[2]  Where would this end?

2.         Sellars also brings up the problem that to be able to distinguish <green> from <looks green>, John must seem to already be able to “[know] in what circumstances to view an object to determine its color” and “[notice] that certain objects have certain perceptible characteristics.”[3]  If he already has those abilities, then what does Sellar’s explanation add?  That is, why not just say that John has the ability to notice color, and is then able to label such-and-such color as <green> without having to go through the rigmarole of learning <looks green>?

Responding to the Questions

1.         Sellars responds to the infinite regress concern in a rather straightforward way.  John’s knowledge that the tie <is green> requires those other concepts and knowledge—however, those other concepts do not require justification by further concepts.  What matters to John when reporting <green> is only his ability to justify his statement according to appeals to <looks green> and standard conditions/observers—it doesn’t require any further justification than that for those justificatory concepts.  He doesn’t need to further justify the statement; he only needs the basic presuppositional “knowledge of general facts of the form X is a reliable symptom of Y” and to be able to remember that he can fill in X and Y with <being green> and <looks green> under standard conditions.[4]

2.         The other concern, that John already possesses the ability to observe <green>, is solved interestingly.  First, we should note that what Sellars has described with John is exactly the problem with the ‘avoid-the-rigmarole’ alternative (that John might not possess the concept of <being green> without also having to be able to distinguish it from merely <looking green>).  The point of the story is in part to show that it doesn’t make sense to say that John can obtain <green> solely through his ability to notice certain perceptible characteristics and without other concepts.  However, Sellars doesn’t totally disagree with the points that some things are presupposed; he just thinks it’s a non-issue.  He admits that “there is a logical dimension in which other empirical propositions rest on observation reports, there is another logical dimension in which the latter rest on the former.”[5]

If Not Regression or Illogical Circularity, Then What?

Sellars has provided reasons against the concerns that his account implies an infinite regression or that “one must have concepts before one has them.”[6]  Instead, “one can have the concept of green only by having a whole battery of concepts of which it is one element,” and “the process of acquiring the concept of green... involve[s] a long history of acquiring piecemeal habits of response to various objects in various circumstances.”[7]  The concepts around and including <green> present themselves together, holistically, seemingly though a history of habituation.

            We can reexamine John in the tie shop to see how the holistic situation arises.  John, after being told that there’s a difference between “being green” and “looking green,” remembers this for later.  When someone else asks him what color the blue tie is while he is under his shop’s strange lighting, John remembers what he learned, and is able to reason that the tie <is blue> even though it presently <looks green>.[8]  He would be able to apply what he learned to other colors, by taking them outside and seeing what color they ‘really are’.  Eventually, he would be able to justify his reasoning to someone else who hasn’t yet learned the distinction between <green> and <looks green>.  John, by being corrected by those around him, is able to learn concepts from his community, and this is the process of habitation which instills concepts in John.

            What is especially important to Sellars is John’s ability to justify his statement that something is <green>.  In his paper, Sellars lands on the idea that:

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.[9]

John obtains the concept <green> when he is able to justify things about <green> in that “logical space of reasons,” which is learned within or alongside the habituation process.[10]  This is Sellar’s positive account for how someone can be said to have a concept that avoids the regression—if one is able to justify a concept or use it to justify something, then it is in the space of reasons and one possesses the concept.  John is able to justify that something <is green>, so he possesses the concept <is green>.  John uses the concept <looks green> in standard conditions to justify that something is green, so he possesses the concept <looks green>.

Footnotes

[1] Wilfred Sellars, “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” in Science, Perception and Reality (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), §§14-18.

[2] Ibid., §36.

[3] Ibid., §19.

[4] Ibid., §36.

[5] Ibid., §38.

[6] Ibid., §19.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid., §15.

[9] Ibid., §36.

[10] Ibid.

Bibliography

Sellars, Wilfrid. “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind,” In Science, Perception and Reality. 127-196. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963.