*Navigation:* *Project Folder:* Receptor *Resources:* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwyc6QCl9Is&t=19s - -- # Sellars on Foundationalism - -- - myth of the given - believed in the world around, rejected naive - world that does exist independently - grew around philosophers, studied, war interupted his study - idea he is adressing - plato —> what is knowledge ? maybe perception, but thats not right,.. knowing–>perceiving ; we make mistakes - knowladge is not only truth beliefs - KNOWLEDGE = **justifiend true believes** ? - why - why - why - why - ... - traditional solution –> say, in the end, the things justify themsleves - these things are GIVEN - fundamental, without any more justification => **GRASPING** - analyticas / logical truth .. *but what about emirical knowledge?* - basic sense data — *looks* statement .. SENSATION - Grasping is the BASE of knowledge (BELIEF) - but underneath are **SENSATIONS —> SENSING** - ![[Screenshot 2023-01-17 at 17.23.08.jpg|300]] - basic, because they dont presuppose ! - -- - UNDERSTENDING - understand - concepts - beliefs - -- - -- - SENSIBILITY - senses - dont have any conceptual beliefes - perception of the world and knoowledge are seperate (kant). Hegel combines them - sellars try the same - relation between GRASPING AND SENSING - CAUSAL relationship —> wall looks green, cause a sense it. and i can justify.. ask someone else - #### sensing –> inner episodes. purely pre-conceptual, no concepts - you are immediately categorising things - try to see something you have no clue of - like modern art —> abstract canvas, you might not know how to categorize - bunch of canoes - starts to look like a tree of metal - sensation thesis - *some sensings presuppose no concepts* - ### **grasping => non inferential knowings** - (neodvozené) - doesnt come from other beliefes - which are (based) on sensings - all knowledge is based on grasping - how do we get objectivity - primal subjective states - color perception - endore, cause other people agree - justifying - endorsing - objective truth - „my vision is pretty similar to yours“ - some people have worse sight,.. some people might have different hearings,... - but we thinks it is enough similar - enough corespondency to be able to objectify - -- - ### **sensings are necessary conditions of graspings** - ### **graspings are necesseary conditions of all empirical knowledge** - but not only senses are cause of grapsing - we could add: - ### **sensings play a role in justifying graspings** - theory of the given - and thats not what this essay is about - but Sellars doesnt attack on this whole picture - framework of giveness - controversial in the essay is . .something with the structure, layers,.. - what is the realm of GRASPINGS like ? - *how something looks to me, feels to me,..* - #### how do these relate to each other? - #### **ATOMISM: these graspings dont presuppose any other empirical knowledge** - GRASPINGS ARE ALL **INDEPENDENT** - ULTIMATE JUSTIFIERS - **ADJUDICATION — Graspings are the court of appeals** - (odvolacím soudem) —> just an experience - Sellars essay attacks ==ATOMISM== AND ==ADJUDICATION== - STRUCTURE is different – they are much more together - denying - positive thesis: - ## graspings *(non infferential knowings)* presuppose other empirical knowledge - if something looks green to me —> presuppose, that i know what green looks like, and what condition to judging green is,.. - ## graspings are not the ultimate court of appeals - science is self-correcting. the value is in it's ability to self-correct - science is something taking body of experience and correct the complexity - trying to approach more and more truth - #### **SCIENCE GAINS OBJECTIVITY** by being SELF-CORRECTING - NOT BY RESTING ON SOME FOUNDATION.. - -- - looking green x being green - -- - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtoUe41Vz4Q - -- - manifest image - pre-science - we think of ourselves as capable of choosing, free, rational - science image - theoretical - fieldes, particles ,.. as base of scientific theory - Sellars thinks that this instrumentalist picture gets almost everything wrong. In his view the observation vocabulary/theoretical vocabulary distinction is merely methodological and is, moreover, highly malleable; it therefore possesses no particular ontological force. **There is no given, so it can play no semantic role.** - His bold claim, “In the dimension of describing and explaining the world, science is the measure of all things, of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not” - Sellars would never hold that all our questions are to be settled by scientific investigations. - In his view, laws of nature are proposed connections among concepts or terms that, pending possible empirical disconfirmation, can be rationally attached to the concepts. - Sellars then argues that the language of perceptible qualities and relations cannot be reduced to or replaced by any vocabulary we currently project to be adequate to the behavior of mere physical objects. - This streamlined historical view is combined with the ‘grain argument’, which encapsulates the reasoning that led to the denial that physical objects are really colored. This argument poses a challenge to materialism by purporting to show that the proper sensibles cannot be reduced to properties or relations of more basic physical particles that lack these properties. - propositional seeing and objectual seeing - seeing an object and what we see _of_ the object - “We see not only _that_ the ice cube is pink, and see it _as_ pink, we see _the very pinkness_ of the object; also _its very shape_ — though from a certain point of view” - What we see _of_ the ice cube is present to us in a different way from that in which the (merely) conceptual content of our experience is present to us. What is needed is: - an analysis of the sense in which we see of the pink ice cube its very pinkness. Here, I believe, sheer phenomenology or conceptual analysis takes us _part_ of the way, but finally lets us down. How far does it take us? Only to the point of assuring us that - > > _Something, somehow_ a cube of pink in physical space is present in the perception other than as merely _believed in_ (SSOP §26: 89). - what kind of thing that is in what kind of way a cube of pink in physical space is present in one’s perception, and how can it be present in a way other than as believed in? - Sellars’s notion of reduction is fairly straightforward: - if an object is in a strict sense a system of objects, then every property of the object must consist in the fact that its constituents have such and such qualities and stand in such and such relations or, roughly, every property of a system of objects consists of properties of, and relations between, its constituents (PSIM in SPR: 27). -