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Carl Sachs

Marymount University, Philosophy, Faculty Member

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My long-term project is reconciling liberal naturalism and scientific naturalism by showing that recent work in theoretical biology and cognitive science vindicates the reality of teleology, intentionality, and normativity.

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Books by Carl Sachs

Naturalized Teleology: Cybernetics, Organization, and Purpose

The rise of mechanistic science in the 17 th century helped give rise to a heated debate about wh... more The rise of mechanistic science in the 17 th century helped give rise to a heated debate about whether teleology-the appearance of purposive activity in life and in mind-could be naturalized. At issue here were both what is meant by "teleology" as well as what is meant "nature". I shall examine a specific episode in the history of this debate in the 20 th century with the rise of cybernetics: the science of seemingly "self-controlled" systems. Against cybernetics, Hans Jonas argued that cybernetics failed as a naturalistic theory of teleology and that the reality of teleology is grounded in phenomenology, not in scientific explanations. I shall argue that Jonas was correct to criticize cybernetics but that contemporary work in biological organization succeeds where cybernetics failed. I will then turn to contemporary uses of Jonas's phenomenology in enactivism and argue that Jonas's phenomenology should be avoided by enactivism as a scientific research program, but that it remains open whether enactivism as a philosophy of nature should also avoid Jonas.

Intentionality and the Myths of the Given (description)

From the publisher: description of "Intentionality and the Myths of the Given," November 1, 2014.

Book Chapters by Carl Sachs

Sellars As Transitional Pragmatist

I argue that Sellars's proximity to pragmatism has been occluded by ignoring how close he is to C... more I argue that Sellars's proximity to pragmatism has been occluded by ignoring how close he is to C. I. Lewis. I argue that C. I. Lewis' conceptualistic pragmatism should be understood as a pragmatist alternative to Dewey's emphasis on the organism-environment transaction. I then argue that Sellars's distinction between "signifying" and "picturing" is precisely the distinction that we need in order to reconcile Dewey and Lewis. Thus picturing, far from being the idea that bars pragmatists from accepting Sellars, is in fact a concept that pragmatists ought to embrace.

Discursive Intentionality as Embodied Coping

I argue that "discursive intentionality" -- the kind of intelligibility at work in meanings struc... more I argue that "discursive intentionality" -- the kind of intelligibility at work in meanings structured by reason-giving -- is a form of embodied coping and not a rupture with it. I develop this view in terms of the Dreyfus-McDowell debate, and argue that Dreyfus is basically right about "sentience" whereas McDowell is basically right about "sapience". The question is how to accept both of those claims. Joe Rouse (2015) argues that we should recognize both that conceptual capacities are realized in discursive practices and that discursive practices are forms of embodied coping. Though Rouse’s account has much to recommend it, it can be nevertheless strengthened in significant ways that undermine Dreyfus’s stark contrast between the space of reasons and the space of motivations replacing it with a distinction between sapient intentionality and sentient intentionality.

A Conceptual Genealogy of the Pittsburgh School: Between Kant and Hegel

A summary of the major themes in the Pittsburgh School (Sellars, McDowell, and Brandom) and its h... more

Embodied Critical Realism

Philosophers working in the wake of Sellars, such as Brandom and McDowell, agree that there a fun... more Philosophers working in the wake of Sellars, such as Brandom and McDowell, agree that there a fundamentally important distinction between sapience and sentience. At least in Sellars, both sentience and sapience are " transcendental " structures – they are posited to explain our cognitively significant experience, including (but not limited to) empirical knowledge – but they must also be adequately reflected in, or realized in, causal structures. Sellars' critical realism, according to which sense-impressions causally mediate our perceptual encounters with object, is grounded the attempt to specify the causal structures in which the transcendental distinction between perceiving and thinking is reflected. Here I contrast critical realism with recent work in the enactivist approach to the philosophy of cognitive science, which conceives of direct realism in terms of the relations between sensorimotor abilities and features of the environment. The hybrid approach, " embodied critical realism " , treats sensorimotor abilities as taking the place of the productive imagination, such that the dynamic unfolding over time of the relation between sensorimotor abilities and environmental features explains how perceptual awareness of objects is explicated in terms of expectations and surprisals.

Speculative Materialism or Pragmatic Naturalism?: Sellars contra Meillassoux

I argue that Quentin Meillassoux's taxonomy of philosophical positions -- dogmatic metaphysics, s... more I argue that Quentin Meillassoux's taxonomy of philosophical positions -- dogmatic metaphysics, strong correlationism, and speculative materialism -- does not account for Wilfrid Sellars's pragmatic naturalism. Sellars adopts a methodological interpretation of the principle of sufficient reason as a constraint on explanations, rather than as a ontological principle of justification.

Papers by Carl Sachs

The Single-Minded Animal: Shared Intentionality, Normativity, and the Foundations of Discursive Cognition

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Aug 8, 2022

Phenomenology vs the Myth of the Given: A Sellarsian Perspective on Husserl and Merleau-Ponty

Introduction: Why a New Account of Intentionality?

The Epistemic Given and the Semantic Given in C. I. Lewis

A Conceptual Genealogy of the Pittsburgh School

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Nov 21, 2019

Nietzsche’s Daybreak

Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2008

Any interpretation of Nietzsche's criticisms of morality must show whether or not Nietzsche i... more Any interpretation of Nietzsche's criticisms of morality must show whether or not Nietzsche is entitled both to deny free will and to be concerned with furthering human freedom. Here I will show that Nietzsche is entitled to both claims if his theory of freedom is set in the context of a naturalistic drive-psychology. The drive-psychology allows Nietzsche to develop a modified but recognizable account of freedom as autonomy. I situate this development in Nietzsche's thought through a close reading of Daybreak (Morgenrote). In conclusion I contrast Nietzsche's naturalistic account of autonomy with the transcendental account developed by Kant.

Autonomy After Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism, and Modernity

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Aug 8, 2015

Adorno: The Recovery of Experience. SUNY Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy

Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2007

Page 1. 330 CARL B. SACHS descriptions of human flourishing. Interestingly, much ofThe Cage seems... more

Phenomenology vs the Myth of the Given

Quodlibet eBooks, Jul 14, 2020

Critical Theory/Frankfurt School

The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory, 2010

Natural Agents: A Transcendental Argument for Pragmatic Naturalism

Contemporary Pragmatism, Apr 21, 2009

I distinguish between two phases of Rorty's naturalism-"non-reductive physicalism" (NRP) and "pra... more I distinguish between two phases of Rorty's naturalism-"non-reductive physicalism" (NRP) and "pragmatic naturalism" (PN). NRP holds that the vocabulary of mental states is irreducible that of physical states, but this irreducibility does not distinguish the mental from other irreducible vocabularies. PN differs by explicitly accepting a naturalistic argument for the transcendental status of the vocabulary of agency. Though I present some reasons for preferring PN over NRP, PN depends on whether 'normativity' can be 'naturalized'.

“We pragmatists mourn Sellars as a Lost Leader”

Intentionality and the Myths of the Given: Between Pragmatism and Phenomenology

Introduction: Why a New Account of Intentionality? 1 Intentionality and the Problem of Transcende... more Introduction: Why a New Account of Intentionality? 1 Intentionality and the Problem of Transcendental Friction 2 The Epistemic Given and the Semantic Given in C I Lewis 3 Discursive Intentionality and 'Nonconceptual Content' in Sellars 4 The Retreat from Nonconceptualism: Discourse and Experience in Brandom and McDowell 5 Somatic Intentionality and Habitual Normativity in Merleau-Ponty's Account of Lived Embodiment 6 The Possibilities and Problems of Bifurcated Intentionality Conclusion Appendix: Is Phenomenology Committed to the Myth of the Given?

Naturalized Teleology: Cybernetics, Organization, and Purpose

The rise of mechanistic science in the 17 th century helped give rise to a heated debate about wh... more The rise of mechanistic science in the 17 th century helped give rise to a heated debate about whether teleology-the appearance of purposive activity in life and in mind-could be naturalized. At issue here were both what is meant by "teleology" as well as what is meant "nature". I shall examine a specific episode in the history of this debate in the 20 th century with the rise of cybernetics: the science of seemingly "self-controlled" systems. Against cybernetics, Hans Jonas argued that cybernetics failed as a naturalistic theory of teleology and that the reality of teleology is grounded in phenomenology, not in scientific explanations. I shall argue that Jonas was correct to criticize cybernetics but that contemporary work in biological organization succeeds where cybernetics failed. I will then turn to contemporary uses of Jonas's phenomenology in enactivism and argue that Jonas's phenomenology should be avoided by enactivism as a scientific research program, but that it remains open whether enactivism as a philosophy of nature should also avoid Jonas.

Intentionality and the Myths of the Given (description)

From the publisher: description of "Intentionality and the Myths of the Given," November 1, 2014.

Sellars As Transitional Pragmatist

I argue that Sellars's proximity to pragmatism has been occluded by ignoring how close he is to C... more I argue that Sellars's proximity to pragmatism has been occluded by ignoring how close he is to C. I. Lewis. I argue that C. I. Lewis' conceptualistic pragmatism should be understood as a pragmatist alternative to Dewey's emphasis on the organism-environment transaction. I then argue that Sellars's distinction between "signifying" and "picturing" is precisely the distinction that we need in order to reconcile Dewey and Lewis. Thus picturing, far from being the idea that bars pragmatists from accepting Sellars, is in fact a concept that pragmatists ought to embrace.

Discursive Intentionality as Embodied Coping

I argue that "discursive intentionality" -- the kind of intelligibility at work in meanings struc... more I argue that "discursive intentionality" -- the kind of intelligibility at work in meanings structured by reason-giving -- is a form of embodied coping and not a rupture with it. I develop this view in terms of the Dreyfus-McDowell debate, and argue that Dreyfus is basically right about "sentience" whereas McDowell is basically right about "sapience". The question is how to accept both of those claims. Joe Rouse (2015) argues that we should recognize both that conceptual capacities are realized in discursive practices and that discursive practices are forms of embodied coping. Though Rouse’s account has much to recommend it, it can be nevertheless strengthened in significant ways that undermine Dreyfus’s stark contrast between the space of reasons and the space of motivations replacing it with a distinction between sapient intentionality and sentient intentionality.

A Conceptual Genealogy of the Pittsburgh School: Between Kant and Hegel

A summary of the major themes in the Pittsburgh School (Sellars, McDowell, and Brandom) and its h... more

Embodied Critical Realism

Philosophers working in the wake of Sellars, such as Brandom and McDowell, agree that there a fun... more Philosophers working in the wake of Sellars, such as Brandom and McDowell, agree that there a fundamentally important distinction between sapience and sentience. At least in Sellars, both sentience and sapience are " transcendental " structures – they are posited to explain our cognitively significant experience, including (but not limited to) empirical knowledge – but they must also be adequately reflected in, or realized in, causal structures. Sellars' critical realism, according to which sense-impressions causally mediate our perceptual encounters with object, is grounded the attempt to specify the causal structures in which the transcendental distinction between perceiving and thinking is reflected. Here I contrast critical realism with recent work in the enactivist approach to the philosophy of cognitive science, which conceives of direct realism in terms of the relations between sensorimotor abilities and features of the environment. The hybrid approach, " embodied critical realism " , treats sensorimotor abilities as taking the place of the productive imagination, such that the dynamic unfolding over time of the relation between sensorimotor abilities and environmental features explains how perceptual awareness of objects is explicated in terms of expectations and surprisals.

Speculative Materialism or Pragmatic Naturalism?: Sellars contra Meillassoux

I argue that Quentin Meillassoux's taxonomy of philosophical positions -- dogmatic metaphysics, s... more I argue that Quentin Meillassoux's taxonomy of philosophical positions -- dogmatic metaphysics, strong correlationism, and speculative materialism -- does not account for Wilfrid Sellars's pragmatic naturalism. Sellars adopts a methodological interpretation of the principle of sufficient reason as a constraint on explanations, rather than as a ontological principle of justification.

The Single-Minded Animal: Shared Intentionality, Normativity, and the Foundations of Discursive Cognition

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Aug 8, 2022

Phenomenology vs the Myth of the Given: A Sellarsian Perspective on Husserl and Merleau-Ponty

Introduction: Why a New Account of Intentionality?

The Epistemic Given and the Semantic Given in C. I. Lewis

A Conceptual Genealogy of the Pittsburgh School

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Nov 21, 2019

Nietzsche’s Daybreak

Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2008

Any interpretation of Nietzsche's criticisms of morality must show whether or not Nietzsche i... more Any interpretation of Nietzsche's criticisms of morality must show whether or not Nietzsche is entitled both to deny free will and to be concerned with furthering human freedom. Here I will show that Nietzsche is entitled to both claims if his theory of freedom is set in the context of a naturalistic drive-psychology. The drive-psychology allows Nietzsche to develop a modified but recognizable account of freedom as autonomy. I situate this development in Nietzsche's thought through a close reading of Daybreak (Morgenrote). In conclusion I contrast Nietzsche's naturalistic account of autonomy with the transcendental account developed by Kant.

Autonomy After Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism, and Modernity

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Aug 8, 2015

Adorno: The Recovery of Experience. SUNY Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy

Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2007

Page 1. 330 CARL B. SACHS descriptions of human flourishing. Interestingly, much ofThe Cage seems... more

Phenomenology vs the Myth of the Given

Quodlibet eBooks, Jul 14, 2020

Critical Theory/Frankfurt School

The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory, 2010

Natural Agents: A Transcendental Argument for Pragmatic Naturalism

Contemporary Pragmatism, Apr 21, 2009

I distinguish between two phases of Rorty's naturalism-"non-reductive physicalism" (NRP) and "pra... more I distinguish between two phases of Rorty's naturalism-"non-reductive physicalism" (NRP) and "pragmatic naturalism" (PN). NRP holds that the vocabulary of mental states is irreducible that of physical states, but this irreducibility does not distinguish the mental from other irreducible vocabularies. PN differs by explicitly accepting a naturalistic argument for the transcendental status of the vocabulary of agency. Though I present some reasons for preferring PN over NRP, PN depends on whether 'normativity' can be 'naturalized'.

“We pragmatists mourn Sellars as a Lost Leader”

Intentionality and the Myths of the Given: Between Pragmatism and Phenomenology

Introduction: Why a New Account of Intentionality? 1 Intentionality and the Problem of Transcende... more Introduction: Why a New Account of Intentionality? 1 Intentionality and the Problem of Transcendental Friction 2 The Epistemic Given and the Semantic Given in C I Lewis 3 Discursive Intentionality and 'Nonconceptual Content' in Sellars 4 The Retreat from Nonconceptualism: Discourse and Experience in Brandom and McDowell 5 Somatic Intentionality and Habitual Normativity in Merleau-Ponty's Account of Lived Embodiment 6 The Possibilities and Problems of Bifurcated Intentionality Conclusion Appendix: Is Phenomenology Committed to the Myth of the Given?

What’s at stake in the debate over naturalizing teleology? An overlooked metatheoretical debate

Synthese

Recent accounts of teleological naturalism hold that organisms are intrinsically goal-directed en... more Recent accounts of teleological naturalism hold that organisms are intrinsically goal-directed entities. We argue that supporters and critics of this view have ignored the ways in which it is used to address quite different problems. One problem is about biology and concerns whether an organism-centered account of teleological ascriptions would improve our descriptions and explanations of biological phenomena. This is different from the philosophical problem of how naturalized teleology would affect our conception of nature, and of ourselves as natural beings. The neglect of this metatheoretic distinction has made it difficult to understand the criteria we should use for evaluating proposals to naturalize teleology. We argue that a clearer distinction between scientific and philosophical contexts shows that we need more than one set of criteria for evaluating proposals to naturalize teleology, and that taking these into account might advance or dissolve recurring debates in the literature.

Quine’s critique of C. I. Lewis: pragmatism, psychologism, and naturalism—a response to Quine, conceptual pragmatism, and the analytic-synthetic distinction (Robert Sinclair, 2022)

Asian Journal of Philosophy

I argue that Quine's naturalization of Lewis's Kantian pragmatism should be understood in terms o... more I argue that Quine's naturalization of Lewis's Kantian pragmatism should be understood in terms of Lewis's attempt to de-psychologize pragmatist epistemology. Lewis wants epistemology to be a priori in order to be distinct from psychology. Quine's criticisms of Lewis result in a picture that weakens the distinction between epistemology and psychology. Nevertheless, Quine's naturalized Kantian pragmatism remains far more Kantian than is widely recognized, due to what Quine retains from Lewis.

Naturalized Teleology: Cybernetics, Organization, Purpose

Topoi, 2022

The rise of mechanistic science in the 17 th century helped give rise to a heated debate about wh... more The rise of mechanistic science in the 17 th century helped give rise to a heated debate about whether teleology-the appearance of purposive activity in life and in mind-could be naturalized. At issue here were both what is meant by &quot;teleology&quot; as well as what is meant &quot;nature&quot;. I shall examine a specific episode in the history of this debate in the 20 th century with the rise of cybernetics: the science of seemingly &quot;self-controlled&quot; systems. Against cybernetics, Hans Jonas argued that cybernetics failed as a naturalistic theory of teleology and that the reality of teleology is grounded in phenomenology, not in scientific explanations. I shall argue that Jonas was correct to criticize cybernetics but that contemporary work in biological organization succeeds where cybernetics failed. I will then turn to contemporary uses of Jonas&#39;s phenomenology in enactivism and argue that Jonas&#39;s phenomenology should be avoided by enactivism as a scientific research program, but that it remains open whether enactivism as a philosophy of nature should also avoid Jonas.

Naturalized Teleology: Cybernetics, Organization, and Purpose

Topoi, 2023

The rise of mechanistic science in the 17 th century helped give rise to a heated debate about wh... more The rise of mechanistic science in the 17 th century helped give rise to a heated debate about whether teleology-the appearance of purposive activity in life and in mind-could be naturalized. At issue here were both what is meant by "teleology" as well as what is meant "nature". I shall examine a specific episode in the history of this debate in the 20 th century with the rise of cybernetics: the science of seemingly "self-controlled" systems. Against cybernetics, Hans Jonas argued that cybernetics failed as a naturalistic theory of teleology and that the reality of teleology is grounded in phenomenology, not in scientific explanations. I shall argue that Jonas was correct to criticize cybernetics but that contemporary work in biological organization succeeds where cybernetics failed. I will then turn to contemporary uses of Jonas's phenomenology in enactivism and argue that Jonas's phenomenology should be avoided by enactivism as a scientific research program, but that it remains open whether enactivism as a philosophy of nature should also avoid Jonas.

The Role of Picturing In Sellars’s Practical Philosophy in advance

Journal of Philosophical Research

Picturing is a poorly understood element of Sellars&#39;s philosophical project. We diagnose ... more Picturing is a poorly understood element of Sellars&#39;s philosophical project. We diagnose the problem with picturing as follows: on the one hand, it seems that it must be connected with action in order for it to do its job. On the other hand, the representational states of a picturing system are characterized in descriptive and seemingly static terms. How can static terms be connected with action? To solve this problem, we adopt a concept from recent work in Sellarsian metaethics: the idea of a material practical inference, which (we argue) features centrally in how we picture. The key distinction is that the picturing of nonhuman animals involves only Humean material practical inference, in which representational states are corrected only by feedback from the environment and not from discursive interactions. The resulting view shows that Sellars&#39;s contributions to practical philosophy (especially theory of action and metaethics) cannot be separated from his contributions to philosophy of mind, language, and cognitive science. Further, the view makes it clear that picturing is neither a version of the Given, nor is it a fifth wheel to inferential role in explaining representation, but is essential to Sellars&#39;s model of how animalsincluding humans-represent their environment.

THE ROLE OF PICTURING IN SELLARS'S PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY

by Carl Sachs and Jeremy Koons

Journal of Philosophical Research, 2022

Picturing is a poorly understood element of Sellars's philosophical project. We diagnose the prob... more Picturing is a poorly understood element of Sellars's philosophical project. We diagnose the problem with picturing as follows: on the one hand, it seems that it must be connected with action in order for it to do its job. On the other hand, the representational states of a picturing system are characterized in descriptive and seemingly static terms. How can static terms be connected with action? To solve this problem, we adopt a concept from recent work in Sellarsian metaethics: the idea of a material practical inference, which (we argue) features centrally in how we picture. The key distinction is that the picturing of nonhuman animals involves only Humean material practical inference, in which representational states are corrected only by feedback from the environment and not from discursive interactions. The resulting view shows that Sellars's contributions to practical philosophy (especially theory of action and metaethics) cannot be separated from his contributions to philosophy of mind, language, and cognitive science. Further, the view makes it clear that picturing is neither a version of the Given, nor is it a fifth wheel to inferential role in explaining representation, but is essential to Sellars's model of how animals including humans-represent their environment.

Review of Mind, reason, and being-in-the-world: The McDowell-Dreyfus debate

Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 2015

. while background coping is largely unthought, it is not unthinkable. Dreyfus (in Schear, 2013, ... more . while background coping is largely unthought, it is not unthinkable. Dreyfus (in Schear, 2013, p. 27). .. adjusting one's thinking to experience is an exercise of the faculty that conceptual capacities belong to; that is a way of bringing out why the faculty is appropriately described as a faculty of spontaneity. McDowell (in Schear, 2013, p. 50

Is the Given Really a Myth?: Transcendental Pragmatism in C. I. Lewis and Wilfrid Sellars

In this article I examine the cognitive semantics of pragmatism by analyzing whether C. I. Lewis’... more In this article I examine the cognitive semantics of pragmatism by analyzing whether C. I. Lewis’ concept of ‘the given’ is vulnerable to Sellars’ criticisms of ‘the Myth of the Given’. I show that both Lewis’ commitment to the given and Sellars’ criticism of it are positions in cognitive semantics rather than in epistemology per se. Lewis’ commitment to the given as a cognitive semantic thesis (‘the semantic given’) is shown to be consistent with his rejection of epistemological foundationalism (‘the epistemic given’). I show that this position unifies Lewis’ work as a whole. I then show that Sellars’ criticisms of Lewis’ cognitive semantics are defensible and plausible, and that Sellars points us in the right direction for the cognitive semantics that pragmatism needs. I conclude by showing that one aspect of Lewis’ program, what I call ‘the transcendental given,’ does survive Sellars’ criticisms. However, Lewis did not articulate it adequately because he conflated the given with qualia. Sellars’ criticism of the semantic status of qualia refutes Lewis’ conception of the transcendental given but not the transcendental given as such. Accordingly, what is necessary is a ‘transcendental pragmatism’ that acknowledges the transcendental given while rejecting the epistemic given and the semantic given. In doing so I recover Lewis and Sellars from their relatively neglected place and help incorporate them into the pragmatist canon.

Naturalizing Conceptual Pragmatism: C. I. Lewis, Sellars, and Rouse

Scientism Without Representationalism: Neo-pragmatist Semantics and Neo-positivist Metaphysics

Does neopragmatism succeed in showing that metaphysics can be overcome or rejected? The dominant... more Does neopragmatism succeed in showing that metaphysics can be overcome or rejected? The dominant version of this argument hinges on the anti-representationalism of Rorty, Brandom, and Rorty: language does not represent the world, so we should not look for the correct representation of the world. In "Every Thing Must Go" (2007), Ladyman and Ross establish scientific metaphysics on the institutionalized procedures of scientific practice rather than on semantics. Therefore, their scientific metaphysics is not vulnerable to the neopragmatist critique. However, their project is vulnerable to a criticism based on a different kind of neopragmatism inspired by Kukla's interpretation of what Dennett calls a "stance".

Somatic Impulses in the Space of Reasons: Pragmatist Themes in Adorno’s Critical Social Epistemology

I argue that critical social epistemologists, such as Miranda Fricker and Charles Mills, should n... more I argue that critical social epistemologists, such as Miranda Fricker and Charles Mills, should not adopt conceptualism about mental content. Specifically, I argue that Adorno's thesis of "the non-identity of concept and object" accounts for the tension between moral belief and moral perception that is necessary for critical social epistemology to be genuinely critical. Moreover, Adorno's nonvoluntaristic conception of agency and autonomy shows that overcoming what Fricker calls "hermeneutic injustice" is itself an expression of autonomy.

Sentience and Sapience: The Place of Enactive Cognitive Science in Sellarsian Philosophy of Mind

Philosophers working in the wake of Sellars, such as Brandom and McDowell, think that there a fun... more Philosophers working in the wake of Sellars, such as Brandom and McDowell, think that there a fundamentally important distinction between ‘sapience’ and ‘sentience.’ Both sentience and sapience are ‘transcendental’ structures – they are posited to explain our cognitively significant experience, including (but not limited to) empirical knowledge – but they also must be adequately reflected in, or realized in, causal structures. Hence whatever structures and processes that we posit in the course of reflecting on the minimal necessary conditions for our cognitive capacities and incapacities must be correlated with structures and processes that are empirically confirmed and, to the extent possible, consistent with a scientific view of the world. Within this generally Sellarsian framework, I aim to criticize one key aspect of Sellars’s theory of perception concerning the role of sense-impressions (or sensations) as causally mediating our perceptual encounters with objects. More specifically, I shall argue that Sellars was right to argue that we need to posit what he calls “sheer receptivity” in the interests of transcendental philosophy, but wrong to argue that sense-impressions were the best candidates to implement sheer receptivity in rerum natura. I shall then turn to recent work in the enactivist approach to philosophy of cognitive science, which emphasizes the structural coupling between sensorimotor skills and environmental affordances. This structural coupling is a more promising candidate than sensations per se as the causal correlate of sheer receptivity. I conclude by comparing the possibility of synthesizing inferentialism and enactivism with Huw Price’s “new bifurcation thesis”, and suggest that my approach is a more promising candidate for 21st-century Sellarsian pragmatism.

The Demand for Transcendental Friction: Avoiding Idealism in C. I Lewis, Sellars, and McDowell

I argue that a central theme in C. I. Lewis, W. Sellars, and John McDowell is the need to satisfy... more I argue that a central theme in C. I. Lewis, W. Sellars, and John McDowell is the need to satisfy what I call "the demand for transcendental friction": that it must be possible, by reflecting on our basic cognitive capacities as manifest in first-person experience, to guarantee that we are in contact with a reality that we discover and do not create. I show how Lewis, Sellars, and McDowell each attempt to satisfy the Demand and argue that none of them do so adequately. The satisfaction of the Demand requires re-thinking our conception of what the Demand requires.

Pragmatism as Quasi-Representationalism: A Neo-Sellarsian Response to Price and Rorty

I argue here that Huw Price's anti-representationalism should take more seriously the partial reh... more I argue here that Huw Price's anti-representationalism should take more seriously the partial rehabilitation of representationalism undertaken by Sellars' distinction between signifying and picturing. Although signifying is not a word-world relation, and as such, semantic notions such as "means," "refers to" cannot ground substantial metaphysical doctrines, Sellars' account of picturing is best interpreted as a version of transcendental naturalism, and as such, "overcomes" the Carnapian "overcoming" of metaphysics.

The Material A Priori Intelligibility of Nature: Kant, Dewey, and Adorno

In our experiences of nature, whether aesthetic, spiritual, or scientific, we find ways of making... more In our experiences of nature, whether aesthetic, spiritual, or scientific, we find ways of making sense of nature. All these ways of making sense of nature presuppose that nature is intelligible to us. But when we ask, in the reflective mood characteristic of philosophy, as to why nature is intelligible at all, we find ourselves, in a way also characteristic of philosophy, less sure of how to proceed. I begin examining the intelligibility of nature through Kant’s “problem of affinity”. I shall then discuss two alternatives, John Dewey’s evolutionary metaphysics and Theodor Adorno’s critical theory of society, and argue that each presupposes the other.

Phenomenology and the Myth of the Given: Sellars, Merleau-Ponty, and Some Myths About the Given

I argue here that Sellars' "Myth of the Given" is usually misinterpreted as having less extensive... more I argue here that Sellars' "Myth of the Given" is usually misinterpreted as having less extensive scope than it usually does. On a sufficiently generic construal of the Myth, I argue that there is a distinctively phenomenological version of the Myth, one that can be found in the early Husserl but that is absent from Merleau-Ponty. Merleau-Ponty's evasion of the phenomenological Myth bears directly on Robert Hanna's argument for Kantian Non-Conceptualism.

Representations without Representationalism: Price’s Sellarsian Pragmatism

To be presented at SAAP 2014.

Huw Price’s long-standing criticism of representationalism is partially mitigated by what he now ... more Huw Price’s long-standing criticism of representationalism is partially mitigated by what he now calls “the new bifurcation thesis.” Central to this thesis is his distinction between “i-representations” and “e-representations”. He finds in Sellars’ distinction between “S-assertability” and “picturing” an anticipation of this distinction. I argue here that while Price correctly claims that Sellars anticipates the new bifurcation thesis, he neglects the role that Sellars assigns to picturing. I develop this aspect of Sellars’ thought by turning to Seibt’s interpretation of picturing, which she shows requires a distinction between high-grade, discursive and low-grade, biological normativity. Hence the new bifurcation thesis is best understood as a bifurcation between kinds of normativity, and not just between kinds of representation.

Review of "Autonomy After Auschwitz" (Shuster)

Review of "Autonomy After Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism, and Modernity" " (Shuster). Forthc... more

Review of "Mind, Reason, and Being-in-the-World: The McDowell-Dreyfus Debate". Joseph Schear (ed.). Routledge: 2013

In his 2005 Pacific APA Presidential Address, Hubert Dreyfus initiated a debate with John McDowel... more In his 2005 Pacific APA Presidential Address, Hubert Dreyfus initiated a debate with John McDowell over the legacy of Wilfrid Sellars"s criticisms of C. I. Lewis for epistemology and philosophy of mind. Though Dreyfus applauded Sellars"s criticism of "the Myth of the Given", he warned that the pendulum had swung to the opposing extreme --what he called "the Myth of the Mental": that rational mindedness pervades all of our experience. This debate continued at the 2006 Eastern APA (subsequently published in Inquiry as Dreyfus 2007a, 2007b and McDowell 2007a, 2007b) and now with the outstanding collection of papers edited by Joseph

Adorno: The Recovery of Experience (review

The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2008

... his concern with the limits of language. Foster reads the early Wittgenstein as concerned wit... more

Teaching Statement

Research Statement

CFP - Pragmatism in Transition: Contemporary Perspectives on C. I. Lewis (Palgrave Macmillan)

by Peter Olen and Carl Sachs

An open CFP for a critical volume on C. I. Lewis's philosophy to be published by Palgrave Macmill... more

Pragmatism as Naturalized idealism

PowerPoint slides for a presentation on my general research program and past and current projects.

Nietzsche Between Scientism and Irrationalism: From Physiological Psychology to Global Skepticism

This paper attempts to re-assess Gyorgy Lukacs's criticisms of Nietzsche in "The Destruction of R... more This paper attempts to re-assess Gyorgy Lukacs's criticisms of Nietzsche in "The Destruction of Reason" in light of recent work in Nietzsche's epistemology, I argue that Lukacs's claim that Nietzsche is an "irrationalist" does not take into account Nietzsche's mature skepticism or what Green (2002) calls his "global non-cognitivism". I conclude that Lukacs is right about the basic incompatibility of Nietzsche with Hegelian-Marxist thought, but not for the reasons he gave.

A Cybernetic Theory of Persons: How Sellars Naturalized Kant

Philosophical Inquiries, 2022

I argue that Sellars's naturalization of Kant should be understood in terms of how he used behavi... more I argue that Sellars's naturalization of Kant should be understood in terms of how he used behavioristic psychology and cybernetics. I first explore how Sellars used Edward Tolman's cognitive-behavioristic psychology to naturalize Kant in the early essay "Language, Rules, and Behavior". I then turn to Norbert Wiener's understanding of feedback loops and circular causality. On this basis I argue that Sellars's distinction between signifying and picturing, which he introduces in "Being and Being Known," can be understood in terms of what I call cybernetic behaviorism. I interpret picturing in terms of cycles of cybernetic behavior and signifying in terms of coordination between cybernetic behavior systems, or what I call triangulated cybernetic behavior. This leads to a formal, naturalistic understanding of personhood as the capacity to engage in triangulated cybernetic behavior. I conclude by showing that Sellars's thought has the resources, which he did not exploit, for introducing the concept of second-order cybernetics. This suggests that Sellars's philosophy of mind could be developed in the direction of autopoiesis and enactivism.

The Problem of Metaphysics After the Death of God: Nietzsche, Sellars, and Rorty

I argue that Rorty's criticism of the role of picturing in Sellars's philosophy of mind has roots... more I argue that Rorty's criticism of the role of picturing in Sellars's philosophy of mind has roots in Nietzsche's criticism of metaphysics. Rorty regards picturing and "CSP" as shadows of God, theological resides in Sellars's thought. I shall argue that this is in part a mistake, that rests on Rorty's misunderstanding of Kant. Sellars reads Kant as a Cartesian, and therefore sees Sellars as a naturalized Cartesian, where CSP inherits the role of Descartes's veracious God. Once this misunderstanding is corrected, we can see that Sellars is vulnerable to Rorty's Nietzschean objections.

Response to Christias

A response to Christias' "Somatic Intentionality Bifurcated: A Sellarisan Response to Sachs’s Mer... more

In Defense of Picturing

One of the most difficult concept in Sellars's philosophy of mind is what he called "picturing." ... more One of the most difficult concept in Sellars's philosophy of mind is what he called "picturing." I argue that Friedman's idea of "philosophy as meta-science" and argue that picturing is a meta-scientific concept in Friedman's sense: it is the meta-scientific anticipation of cognitive science. After showing how this makes sense of relevant Sellarsian texts I then turn to predictive processing in cognitive science and suggest that picturing is basically a proto-scientific anticipation of predictive processing.

Sellars As Transitional Pragmatist

According to a widespread conception, the history of American pragmatism is characterized as an “... more According to a widespread conception, the history of American pragmatism is characterized as an “eclipse narrative”: American pragmatism underwent an initial period of growth and flourishing with Peirce, James, Dewey, and many others (“classical pragmatism”); it was then driven into marginal corners of the academy subsequent to the arrival of “analytic” philosophy until it was revived in the 1980s as “neopragmatism” (Rorty, Putnam, Brandom, Price etc.). Apart from the lack of historical veracity, this narrative obscures the roles played by prominent academic philosophers in bridging “classical pragmatism” and “neopragmatism” throughout the 1930s through 1970s. One of these philosophers is Wilfrid Sellars. Though Sellars is not unambiguously identified with pragmatism, I shall argue that much of Sellars’s philosophy is a critical revision of classical pragmatism. In particular, I shall argue that Sellars’s distinction between ‘picturing’ and ‘signifying’ – a distinction that poses many interpretative hurdles – can be put in a more satisfactory shape by understanding picturing as a theory of animal cognition. A full decade before the cognitive revolution against behaviorism had taken shape in the computational theory of mind, Sellars had already sketched the foundations of pragmatist cognitive science and illustrated its relation with the pragmatist epistemology he inherited from Peirce, Dewey, and above all the conceptual pragmatism of C. I. Lewis.

Rorty's Aversion to Normative Violence

Among the deeper strata of Rorty's philosophy is what I call his aversion to normative violence. ... more Among the deeper strata of Rorty's philosophy is what I call his aversion to normative violence. Normative violence occurs when some specific group presents itself as having a privileged relation to reality. The alternative to normative violence is recognizing that cultural politics has priority over ontology. I trace this Rortyian idea to its origins in Nietzsche and Sellars. Rorty's contribution is to combine Nietzsche on the death of God and Sellars on the Myth of the Given. However, I conclude with a suggestion that Rorty ultimately goes too far in thinking that avoiding normative violence requires abstaining from metaphysics and epistemology as such.

Pragmatic Perspectives in Phenomenology in free access

by Ondrej Svec, Jakub Čapek, and Carl Sachs

Dear all, if this enduring period allows you spare some time for reading, you might want to giv... more Dear all,

if this enduring period allows you spare some time for reading, you might want to give a look to the freely and fully accessible contents of „Pragmatic Perspectives in Phenomenology” that we have edited with Jakub Čapek.
The free of charge access is available for six days. Then there is an opportunity to purchase the eBook for £10/$15. Here are the links to the offer:
https://tfstore.kortext.com/pragmatic-perspectives-in-phenomenology-225496 (EPUB version)
https://tfstore.kortext.com/pragmatic-perspectives-in-phenomenology-223022 (PDF version)
Take care and stay safe,
Ondřej Š.