The Realist Challenge to Conceptual Pragmatism

Abstract

Although commonly cited as one of the philosophers responsible for the resurgence of interest in pragmatism, Wilfrid Sellars was also the son of Roy Wood Sellars, one of the most dedicated critical realists of the early 20th century. Given his father's realism and his own 'scientific realism,' one might assume that the history of realism -and, despite contemporary interest, not pragmatism -would best serve as the historical background for Wilfrid Sellars' philosophy.

How Pragmatist was Sellars? Reflections on an Analytic Pragmatism

“…O'Shea (2008,, and in greater depth, Gironi (2017). See also Olen (2015), who presents the important historical and conceptual grounds for placing Wilfrid Sellars in the scientific and critical realist tradition that traces back to Roy Wood Sellars and which was often hostile to classical pragmatism and in particular to C.I. Lewis's "conceptual pragmatism", rather than viewing him through the currently influential lens of post-Rorty/Brandom analytic pragmatism.…”