{"id":4405,"date":"2025-01-09T13:14:35","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T13:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/?p=4405"},"modified":"2025-01-22T15:19:17","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T15:19:17","slug":"prehension-in-c-d-broad-and-wilfrid-sellars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/2025\/01\/09\/prehension-in-c-d-broad-and-wilfrid-sellars\/","title":{"rendered":"Prehension in C. D. Broad and Wilfrid Sellars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is a prehension in Broad&#8217;s philosophy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\">ChatGPT said:<\/h6>\n\n\n\n<p>ChatGPT<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In C.D. Broad&#8217;s philosophy, the term <strong>prehension<\/strong> refers to a primitive, non-cognitive form of acquaintance or awareness. It is an immediate and direct &#8220;grasping&#8221; of an object, property, or event without the mediation of concepts or judgments. This idea often surfaces in discussions about Broad&#8217;s <strong>perceptual realism<\/strong>, his exploration of the nature of mental acts, and the relationship between mind and matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Broad used &#8220;prehension&#8221; to distinguish between basic forms of awareness and higher cognitive processes. Prehension is typically contrasted with more complex processes like <strong>conception<\/strong> or <strong>intellectual apprehension<\/strong>, which involve conceptual thinking and reasoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>When you see a patch of red, the act of directly experiencing the redness can be described as a form of <strong>prehension<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Thinking about the color red as part of a larger concept, such as &#8220;redness as a quality shared by many objects,&#8221; would involve <strong>conception<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Broad&#8217;s use of the term aligns with his interest in clarifying different mental acts and their roles in perception and understanding. It also reflects his broader project of dissecting the mind-matter relationship, as prehension could bridge the gap between subjective experience and objective reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This term is also relevant in broader philosophical contexts, such as <strong>process philosophy<\/strong> (e.g., in Alfred North Whitehead&#8217;s work), but in Broad&#8217;s system, it is more narrowly focused on epistemology and the phenomenology of mental states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">You said:<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>Does Wilfrid Sellars recognoze prehensions in broad&#8217;s sense?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\">ChatGPT said:<\/h6>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wilfrid Sellars does not explicitly use the term <strong>prehension<\/strong> in the sense developed by C.D. Broad, nor does he directly engage with Broad\u2019s terminology or framework in his major works. However, the idea of <strong>prehension<\/strong> as a primitive, non-cognitive form of awareness might seem at odds with Sellars&#8217; broader philosophical commitments. Sellars is famously critical of theories that posit a foundational, non-conceptual layer of cognition as the bedrock of knowledge or perception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sellars&#8217; Critique of &#8220;The Myth of the Given&#8221;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Sellars argues against what he calls <strong>&#8220;The Myth of the Given&#8221;<\/strong>, which is the idea that there is a direct, pre-conceptual acquaintance with reality that serves as a foundational source of knowledge. According to Sellars:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>All knowledge is inherently conceptual.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Perception is not a passive, non-cognitive grasping of sensory data; rather, it is embedded in a framework of conceptual understanding and linguistic articulation.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>If prehension in Broad\u2019s sense is understood as a non-cognitive awareness, it would likely fall under the kinds of &#8220;given&#8221; that Sellars critiques. For Sellars, even basic sensory experiences are shaped by conceptual frameworks and cannot be isolated as purely pre-conceptual or immediate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Possible Points of Overlap<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite this fundamental difference, there are nuanced ways in which Sellars might indirectly acknowledge a role for something resembling prehension:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Raw Sensory Input vs. Conceptual Frameworks<\/strong>: Sellars recognizes that there is a difference between raw sensory stimuli and the conceptual interpretation of those stimuli. However, he would argue that raw sensory input only becomes meaningful within a conceptual or linguistic framework.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Non-Propositional Awareness<\/strong>: While Sellars denies that sensory awareness can be foundational knowledge, he might accept that sensory experiences involve a non-propositional component that is later integrated into a conceptual framework.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Broad&#8217;s notion of prehension as a direct, non-cognitive grasping of experience does not find a clear parallel in Sellars&#8217; philosophy. Sellars&#8217; systematic rejection of the idea that knowledge can be grounded in non-conceptual forms of awareness positions him in direct opposition to Broad&#8217;s understanding of prehension. Instead, Sellars emphasizes the interdependence of perception and conceptualization, making any notion of prehension in Broad\u2019s sense unlikely to fit within Sellars\u2019 system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is a prehension in Broad&#8217;s philosophy? ChatGPT said: ChatGPT In C.D. Broad&#8217;s philosophy, the term prehension refers to a primitive, non-cognitive form of acquaintance or awareness. It is an immediate and direct &#8220;grasping&#8221; of an object, property, or event without the mediation of concepts or judgments. This idea often surfaces in discussions about Broad&#8217;s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/2025\/01\/09\/prehension-in-c-d-broad-and-wilfrid-sellars\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Prehension in C. D. Broad and Wilfrid Sellars&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ai-assist","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4406,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4405\/revisions\/4406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}