Rules, Meaning and Behavior: Reflections on Sellars’ Philosophy of Language

Abstract

In this paper I propose to discuss certain broad and relatively unexplored aspects of Wilfrid Sellars’ philosophy of language. In particular, I shall deal with certain aspects of his richly textured and multi-dimensional account of meaning, rules, rule-governed linguistic behavior, and language learning. My primary concern shall not be with the analytic details of that account (with which I shall pressure the reader to be reasonably familiar), or with the relatively well known ontological issues involved in it (the status of linguistic ’roles’, abstract entities, nominalism, etc.). Instead, I shall venture a synoptic reconstruction of Sellars’ often fragmented and tortuous discussion of the key concepts in the attempt to exhibit their interconnections and their epistemological and methodological implications for a general (psychological) theory of language and linguistic behavior.