Episode 154: Wilfrid Sellars on the Myth of the Given
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
Mark Linsenmayer
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2016
⏱️ 103 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" (1956).
Is knowledge based on a "foundation," as Descartes, Locke, et al. thought? Sellars says no: The allegedly basic elements upon which knowledge would be built either have to be propositions, in which case they involve a lot of prior knowledge involved in language use and so aren't really basic, or they're "raw feels," in which case they can't actually serve as reasons for anything; reasons have to be propositional. With guest Lawrence Dallman.
End song: "Senses on Fire" by Mercury Rev. Check out the interview with singer Jonathan Donahue in Nakedly Examined Music ep. 14.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The partially examined life relies on your support. |
| 0:02.0 | Please consider becoming a partially examined life citizen, |
| 0:04.2 | which gets you ad-free access to all of our episodes, |
| 0:06.8 | hours of bonus content, and our not-school learning community. |
| 0:09.5 | Or support us on Patreon, where even a dollar's pledge yields great rewards. |
| 0:13.2 | If you click through the Amazon banners at partiallyexaminalife.com every time you shop, |
| 0:17.4 | you'll be supporting the podcast at no additional cost to you. |
| 0:19.8 | To learn more, visit partiallyexaminalife.com slash support. |
| 0:23.0 | Now please enjoy the show. |
| 0:30.0 | You're listening to the partially examined life, a philosophy podcast by some guys |
| 0:36.0 | who are at one point set on doing philosophy for living, |
| 0:38.4 | but then thought better of it. |
| 0:40.2 | Our question for episode 154 is, can knowledge be built on a set of fundamental experiences? |
| 0:46.2 | When we read Wilfred Sellers' essay, Impericism in the Philosophy of Mind from 1956, |
| 0:52.5 | you can join the discussion, get the text, and lots more information at partiallyexaminalife.com. |
| 0:58.8 | This is Mark Linton Meyer, logically but not epistimically independent in Madison, Wisconsin. |
| 1:04.2 | This is Wes Owen, non-infrentially aware of you guys via Skype in Cambridge, Massachusetts. |
| 1:10.4 | This is Dylan Casey in middle-term Wisconsin. |
| 1:13.5 | This is Lauren Stalman in Chicago Illinois. |
| 1:16.0 | Laurence, welcome. |
| 1:18.2 | Thank you. Thanks for having me on. |
| 1:19.5 | Should we call you Laurence or should we call you Dusty? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Mark Linsenmayer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Mark Linsenmayer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.