{1} I follow the distinctions made by Jaegwon Kim in his "Materialism and the Criteria of the Mental," Synthese 22 (1971): 323-345.
{2} R. Chisholm is responsible for popularizing Brentano's criterion in the English speaking world. However, his interpretation of Brentano's criterion may be inaccurate according to Linda L. McAlister in her article "Chisholm and Brentano on Intentionality," Review of Metaphysics 28 (1974): 328-338.
{3} Wilfrid Sellars, Science, Perception, and Reality (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1963), 184-185.
{4} Perhaps the better phrase would be 'cognitive sciences'. The reason for calling it 'cognitive science' is that a number of disciplines seem to be converging on a set of assumptions on how to understand the mind. These disciplines are, according to Howard Gardner: philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and psychology (The Mind's New Science (New York: Basic Books, 1987), 37). The consensus is that mental activity is representational and that it can be profitably studied by computer simulation.
{5} There are two famous objections to the view that psychological phenomena can be simulated by a Turing machine. The first is John Searle's example of a Chinese language translator; the second is Ned Block's example of the Chinese population acting as the components of a computer. See John Searle, "Minds, Brains and Programs," The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3 (1980): 417-424; and Ned Block, "Troubles with Functionalism," in Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, ed. Ned Block, vol. 1 (Cambridge, MS: Harvard University Press, 1980).
{6} Sellars, Science, Perception and Reality, 33, 50-59, 101, 219, 313.
{7} Block, "Troubles with Functionalism." There is a need for a clarification of Block's characterization of any functionalism as having an equivalent Ramsey transcription: "All functional-state identity theories (and functional-property identity theories) can be understood as defining a set of functional states (or functional properties) by means of the Ramsey sentence . . ." Ibid., 272. Evidently Block has not considered the controversy between objectual and substitutional interpretation of quantified variables. Since Sellars adopts a substitutional approach, the Ramsey transcription is an intermediary sentence which must be cashed in by names for the variables. If the variables are cashed in by names of the brain or parts of the brain, then the Ramsey technique is a technique to exhibit ontological commitment, and is acceptable to Sellars.
{9} Patricia Churchland, "Language, Thought, and Information Processing." Noûs 14 (1980): 147-170. She cites Paul Churchland's discussion in his Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), where he calls the language-thought isomorphism "the Ideal Sentential Automaton Approach."
{10} Jerry Fodor "Fodor's Guide to Mental Representation: The Intelligent Auntie's Vade-Mecum," Mind 94 (1985): 76-100.
{11} In this regard, Sellars' view is similar to Quine's. They both refuse to recognize meanings (and intensional objects, generally) as anything other than functional roles.
{12} For a fuller discussion of Sellars' non-relational approach to propositional attitudes, see his "Metaphysics and the Concept of a Person," in The Logical Way of Doing Things, ed. Karl Lambert (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), 234-237; also Laurence Goldstein, "The Adverbial Theory of Conceptual Thought," The Monist 65 (1982): 379-392.
{13} For an elaboration of this point, I refer the reader to Noam Chomsky, "Review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior," in The Structure of Language, ed. J. Fodor and J. Katz (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964).
{14} Skinner talks about private phenomena as "collateral products or effects", and collateral effects apparently have no causal or explanatory efficacy, as is suggested by the following passage: "But this does not mean that his feelings are causally effective; his answer reports a collateral effect." B. F. Skinner, About Behaviorism (Alfred A. Knopf, 1974; Vintage Books, 1976), 53.
{15} I am borrowing the phrase from Jerry Fodor's article title: "Methodological solipsism considered as a research strategy in cognitive psychology," The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (1980): 63-109. Fodor in turn says that he borrows the phrase from Hilary Putnam's essay "The Meaning of Meaning," in Language, Mind and Knowledge: Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, ed. K. Gunderson, vol. 7 (University of Minnesota Press, 1975). However, the original source is no doubt R. Carnap's Der Logische Aufbau der Welt in which the phrases "autopsychological basis" and "methodological solipsism" are used. See R. Carnap, The Logical Structure of the World and Pseudoproblems in Philosophy, trans. Rolf A. George (Berkeley and Los Angeles, Cal.: University of California Press, 1969), 103. A critical discussion of the Aufbau is found in Nelson Goodman, The Structure of Appearance, 2nd ed. (The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1966).
{16} The formal structure of classical contract theories is composed of a state of affairs and a posited generating mechanism for it. This approach has its roots in the Aristotelian method of "synthesis" as found in his Posterior Analytics. For the historical connection see John H. Randall, "The Development of Scientific Method in the School of Padua, in The School of Padua and the Emergence of Modern Science," in Renaissance Essays, ed. Paul O. Kristeller and Philip P. Wiener (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1968).
{17} L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (New York: Macmillan Company, 1953), #32.
{18} J. Fodor, The Language of Thought (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1975), 64.
{20} Patricia Churchland, "Fodor on Language Learning," Synthese 38 (1978), 153.
{21} Sellars has unfortunately not faced this apparent contradiction in his writings.
{22} Wilfrid Sellars, "Behaviorism, Language and Meaning," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 61 (1980), 5, #18. The allusion is obviously to Noam Chomsky who advocates the existence of a species specific innate "knowledge" of a universal grammar.
{23} W. V. Quine, "Sellars on Behaviorism, Language and Meaning," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 6 (1980), 26.
{24} It strikes me that Quine's book Word and Object (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1960) is to a large extent such an account. And I believe there is much in this account with which Sellars could agree.
{25} This "insight" is attributed to Sellars by Patricia Churchland: "A prominent contemporary inspiration for sentential theories of the brain-mind is Wilfrid Sellars." "Language, Thought, and Information Processing," Noûs 14 (1980), 151. However, her considered judgment is that this view is mistaken. Her main target of rebuke is Fodor's theory which posits an innate private language of thoughts. This, however, is not Sellars' view. He only suggests that the thoughts of language users and of animals be understood by analogy to sentence use. What is relevant here is that Sellars does not spell out completely the nature of this analogy -- leaving the suggestion to act as a heuristic device. As such, even the abstemious nature of information processing acceptable to Patricia Churchland is compatible with Sellars' view.
{26} Ausonio Marras, "Rules, Meaning and Behavior: Reflections on Sellars' Philosophy of Language," in The Philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars: Queries and Extensions, ed. Joseph Pitt (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1978), 177.
{27} There is unclarity as to what Chomsky means by a 'universal grammar'. A universal grammar is allegedly composed of rules. But there is an ambiguity in this. Are the rules operative in the sense that they are conformed to like a falling object conforms to the law of gravity, or are rules like the premises of an argument which are, so to say, taken stock off, or are rules like the rules of inference, e.g., the rule of modus ponens, or are rules embedded structures like the hard wiring of a computer? A related problem concerns the generality of these rules. Is a universal grammar equivalent to the syntactical structures which are necessary for any (empirical) language? In that case the universal grammar will consist of at least rules of formation so as to allow subject-predicate and relational sentences, formal and material rules of inference, and sentences expressing practical intentions as conceived by Sellars. If that is the case, then Chomsky's position is incompatible with Sellars'. Sellars would take that these structures are not innate, but learned.
{28} Ausonio Marras, "Rules, Meaning and Behavior: Reflections on Sellars' Philosophy of Language," in The Philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars: Queries and Extensions, ed. Joseph Pitt (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1978), 179.
{29} W. Sellars, "Behaviorism, Language and Meaning," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 61 (1980), 6. I should point out that Fred Wilson incorrectly interpreted Sellars' behaviorism as requiring that all theoretical terms (including mentalistic terms) be explicitly definable by physicalistic terms. See his "Marras on Sellars on Thought and Language," Philosophical Studies 28 (1975): 91-102. This error on Wilson's part was the subject of Ausonio Marras' reply to Wilson. See his "Sellars' Behaviourism: A Reply to Fred Wilson," Philosophical Studies 30 (1976): 413-418.
{30} Wilfrid Sellars to Hector-Neri Castañeda, "Correspondence between Hector Castañeda and Wilfrid Sellars on Philosophy of Mind" (unpublished, 1961), 12.
{31} Wilfrid Sellars, "Some Reflections on Language Games," in Science, Perception, and Reality (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1963), 327.
{32} How such emitted vocal behavior comes about is a secondary question. Some of it is obviously spontaneous babbling while some is the result of imitation.
{33} In Frege's semantics, the verbal expressions stand for either objects or functions. These functions are then subdivided as concepts if the functions take one argument or as relations if the functions take two or more arguments. It seems that the term 'predicate' stands for functions, and then either predicates or functions can be said to be 'unsaturated' in the sense of gappy sentences or propositions, respectively, which need filling. See G. Frege, "On Concept and Object," in Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, ed. Peter Geach and Max Black (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966), 54-55.
{34} Gilbert Ryle, "Categories," in Logic and Language (First and Second Series), ed. Antony Flew (New York: Anchor Books, 1965).
{35} B. F. Skinner, Verbal Behavior (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1957).
{36} Noam Chomsky, "Review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior," in The Structure of Language, ed. J. Fodor and J. Katz (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964), 574.
{38} Wilfrid Sellars, "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind," in Science, Perception, and Reality, 185.
{40} Wilfrid Sellars, "Pure Pragmatics and Epistemology," Philosophy of Science 12 (1947): 181-202; idem, "Epistemology and the New Way of Words," The Journal of Philosophy 44 (1947): 645-60; idem, "Realism and the New Way of Words," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 8 (1947-1948): 601-34; idem, "Concepts as Involving Laws and Inconceivable without Them," Philosophy of Science 15 (1948): 289-315.
{41} Wilfrid Sellars, "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind," in Science, Perception, and Reality, 178.
{43} Wilfrid Sellars to Ausonio Marras, 4.
{44} Sellars, "Philosophy of Mind," 178-179.
{47} Kenneth MacCorquodale and Paul Meehl, "On a Distinction Between Hypothetical Constructs and Intervening Variables," Psychological Review 55 (1948): 95-107.
{48} W.V.O. Quine, "Linguistics and Philosophy," reprinted in Innate Ideas, ed. Stephen P. Stitch (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1975), 200.
{49} Wilfrid Sellars, "Behaviorism, Language and Meaning," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 61 (1980), 14, #107.
{52} W. V. O. Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1960).
{53} Noam Chomsky, Reflections on Language (New York: Random House, 1975), 144.
{54} Chomsky writes: "Let us define 'universal grammar' (UG) as the system of principles, conditions, and rules that are elements or properties of all human languages not merely by accident but by necessity--of course, I mean biological, not logical, necessity. Thus UG can be taken as expressing 'the essence of human language.'" N. Chomsky, Reflections on Language (New York: Random House, 1975), 29. It is odd that Chomsky uses the word 'grammar' in this context because he explicitly says that "'universal grammar' is not one of the set of grammars made available by linguistic theory . . . Rather, it is a schematism that determines the form and character of grammars and the principles by which grammars operate." Ibid., 219. Chomsky would have done better to drop the phrase 'universal grammar' in favor of the phrase 'universal schematism'. Put thus, there are no innate grammars (of linguistic theory) for Chomsky.
{55} It seems to me that this is no different than the search for the transcendental conditions for the possibility of any language, and that Sellars has supplied the general schema for this in his observation- inference-volition requirement.
{56} Wilfrid Sellars, "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man," in Science, Perception, and Reality, 17.
{58} Roderick Chisholm, "Intentionality and the Mental (Sellars-Chisholm Correspondence)," in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, ed. Herbert Feigl, Michael Scriven, and Grover Maxwell, vol. 2 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1958), 533.
{59} Wilfrid Sellars to David Rosenthal, "The Rosenthal- Sellars Correspondence on Intentionality," in Intentionality, Mind, and Language, ed. Ausonio Marras (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1972), 478.
{60} Sellars to Casta¤eda, 19.
{61} Sellars, "Philosophy of Mind," 180.
{62} Ausonio Marras, "The Behaviouristic Foundation of Sellars' Semantics," Dialogue 16 (1977), 668.
{63} Sellars, "Philosophy of Mind," 186; quoted by Marras, "Behaviouristic Foundation," 668.
{64} Wilfrid Sellars to Ausonio Marras, Nov. 26, 1975, 4.
[67} Wilfrid Sellars, "Abstract Entities," in Wilfrid Sellars, Philosophical Perspectives (Springfield, Illinois: Charles Thomas, Publishers, 1967), 49.
{68} In his correspondence with Rosenthal, he calls them Rylean items: Wilfrid Sellars to David Rosenthal, "The Rosenthal-Sellars Correspondence on Intentionality," in Intentionality, Mind, and Language, ed. Ausonio Marras, (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1972): 461-503. In "Abstract Entities," 49, he calls them "linguistic types."
{70} Wilfrid Sellars to David Rosenthal, 475.
{71} Wilfrid Sellars, "Notes on Intentionality," in Philosophical Perspectives (Springfield, Illinois: Charles Thomas, Publishers, 1967), 136.
{72} Wilfrid Sellars, Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1967), 160.
{73} Sellars to Rosenthal, 493.
{75} Wilfrid Sellars, "Being and Being Known," in Science, Perception, and Reality, 43.
{76} Sellars, "Abstract Entities," 62-63; idem, "Conceptual Change," in Essays in Philosophy and its History (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1975), #40; idem, Naturalism and Ontology (Reseda, California: Ridgeview Publishing Company, 1980), 94, #72.
{77} Sellars, "Abstract Entities," 66.
{78} Sellars, "Philosophy of Mind," 163.
{79} Sellars, "Abstract Entities," 232-6.
{80} Sellars, "Conceptual Change," 181.
{81} The only criticism of Sellars' treatment of distributive singular terms that I am aware of came from Nicholas Wolterstorff, "On the Nature of Universals," in Universals and Particulars: Readings in Ontology, ed. Michael J. Loux (New York: Anchor Books, 1970), 170. He objected to the following formula involving distributive singular terms: The K is f = All K's are f (necessarily). His criticism was that "The K is f" is ambiguous. Sometimes the correct translation should be 'Most K's are f' or 'All (most) normal K's are f', or 'Typically all (most) K's are f'. Sellars seems to have taken stock of this "criticism" in the following passage: "Notice that although there are monster lions, e.g., malformed lions with five legs, this fact does not impugn the truth of The lion is a quadruped. Normal lions have four legs." Sellars, Naturalism and Ontology, 90.
{82} Sellars to Chisholm, 522.
{83} Sellars, Science and Metaphysics, 83.
{84} Wilfrid Sellars, Rockefeller University, to Gilbert Harman, Princeton University, February 26, 1970, 4-5.
{85} Sellars, Science and Metaphysics, 84-86.
{88} James Cornman, Metaphysics, Reference, and Language (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 127.
{90} W. Sellars, "Truth and Correspondence." Journal of Philosophy 59 (1962): 29-56. Reprinted as chap. 6 in Science, Perception, and Reality. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1963. Idem, Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1967), chap. 5.
{91} The inability of Kant or Peirce to appreciate this strategy is, in Sellars' view, their major flaw: "The basic flaw in the Kantian system (as in that of Peirce) is in its inability to do justice to this fact. The insight that logical form belongs only to conceptual acts (i. e., belongs to "thoughts" rather than to "things") must be supplemented by the insight that "thoughts" as well as "things" must have empirical form if they are to mesh with each other in that way which is essential to empirical knowledge." W. Sellars, "Some Remarks on Kant's Theory of Experience," Journal of Philosophy 64 (1967), 61.
{92} Wilfrid Sellars, Rockefeller University, to Gilbert Harman, Princeton University, February 26, 1970, 7.
{93} Wilfrid Sellars, Rockefeller University, to Gilbert Harman, Princeton University, February 26, 1970, 18.
{95} I suspect that Sellars broke off the correspondence with Harman because of the paucity of Harman's reply to Sellars' second letter.
{96} Wilfrid Sellars, University of Pittsburgh, to Gilbert Harman, Princeton University, November 20, 1970.
{97} See Wilfrid Sellars, "Being and Being Known," in Science, Perception and Reality, 50-59.
{98} This is denied by Gilbert Harman in "Sellars' Semantics," Philosophical Review 79 (1970), 406: "It is not obvious that thinking-out-loud is a kind of thinking." His point seems to be that to attribute thinking-out-loud presupposes "unexpressed psychological states and occurrences." Ibid., 407. This is conceded by Sellars from our ontological point of view, but denied from the epistemic point of view of Ryleans.
{99} Sellars to Castañeda, 5.
{100} Sellars, Science and Metaphysics, 159.
{101} I have in mind here the book by Bruno Snell, The Discovery of Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought, trans. T. G. Rosenmeyer (Harvard University Press, 1953; reprint, Harper Torchbooks, 1960). The relevant point made in this book that the early Homeric Greeks externalized their abnormal psychological states as divine products.
{102} Wilfrid Sellars to Henri-Neri Castañeda, "Correspondence between Hector Castañeda and Wilfrid Sellars on Philosophy of Mind" (unpublished manuscript, 1961-1962), 5.
{103} Sellars, "Philosophy of Mind," 188.
{104} Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (New York: Macmillan Company, 1953), I-244.
{105} [The following passages from R.G. Collingwood's Principles of Art 1938 (reprinted by Oxford University Press, 1958) strike me as similar to my train of thought: ". . . it seems that our sensuous- emotional nature, as feeling creatures, is independent of our thinking nature, as rational creatures, and constitutes a level of experience below the level of thought . . . [it has the] character of a foundation upon which the rational part of our nature is built . . ." p. 163. (AC 1996)]