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Wilfrid Sellars on Scientific Realism*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

Bas C. van Fraassen
Bas C. van Fraassen
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

There are a number of dimensions to the realism-nominalism controversy. The topics of debate comprise: necessary connections and causality, dispositions and counterfactuals, space and time, the existence of abstract entities and mathematical objects, the existence of the theoretical entities of science. On all these except the last, Sellars takes a non-realist line: and on all these except the last, I agree with him to the extent that I presently have an opinion on them. But Sellars is a scientific realist, encapsulating this realism in the dictum: “to have good reason for holding a theory is ipso facto to have good reason for holding that the entities postulated by the theory exist” ([2], p. 91).

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 1975 , pp. 606 - 616
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1975

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References

[1]Sellars, W.F. “The Language of Theories”, in [4].Google Scholar
[2]Sellars, W.F. “Phenomenalism”, in [4].Google Scholar
[3]Sellars, W.F. “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man”, in [4].Google Scholar
[4]Sellars, W.F.Science, Perception and Reality, New York: The Humanities Press, 1963.Google Scholar
[5]von Wright, G. H.Explanation and Understanding, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971.Google Scholar