Sellers in Context: An Analysis of the Early Works of Wilfrid Sellers

Wilfrid Sellars's work has recently gained prominence in the work of analytic philosophers who are concerned with offering a particular account of the relationship between mind, language, and world. This particular account focuses on Sellars's commitment to a normative conception of language and thought that turns on understanding linguistic rules and rule-following as concepts inherently bound to standards of correctness relating to patterns of behavior. Sellars's contemporary influence is not limited to the topic of normativity; his critique of the given, his invocation of the space of reasons, and his functional role semantics have all been subject to lengthy discussions in the secondary literature. Despite the prominence of Sellars's work in contemporary scholarship, little to no attention has been paid to Sellars in scholarship pertaining to the history of analytic philosophy. In fact, little effort has been made to offer a historically sensitive, developmental account of Sellars's philosophical thought in general.