Wilfrid Sellars’ transcendental naturalism :the case of space -

Abstract

This work aims to portray the philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars – encapsulated by the phrase ‘Transcendental Naturalism’ – as complimentary to Kant’s Transcendental Idealism. It does so by suggesting that epistemic conditions can be tied to the natural realm such that all thought and cognitive representation are situated in a natural setting. It aims to demonstrate this moreover, not only by exhibiting a large quantity of Sellars’ philosophy, but also by taking up a particular case––that of spatial cognition. It will hopefully be shown that our conceptual representations of space, and that space itself as a transcendental condition for any experience, is tied to the neurological capacity of organism to orient itself within its environment. This neurological capacity, moreover, can be represented through scientific analogical modeling. This latter point is what underlies Sellars’ scientific realism; the position that the structure of the world as it is in itself is identifiable through scientific investigation.