Sellarsian Scientific Realism without Sensa

Abstract

Wilfrid Sellars is a scientific realist because of his view that “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” ([6], p. 173). He is also an indirect realist because of the claim which he makes when discussing the scientific conceptual framework:

from the standpoint of this sophisticated framework. . . when a person sees that a physical object is red and triangular on the facing side, part of what is ‘really’ going on is that a red and triangular sensum exists where certain microtheoretically construed cortical processes are going on ([6], p. 103).