Wilfred Sellars: A Thomist Estimate

Abstract

WILFRED SELLARS: A THOMIST ESTIMATE TWO SALIENT FEATURES of Sellars's philosophy are is conviction that, as he puts it, 'Science is the measre of all things, of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not ';1 and his opposition to what he calls 'the myth of the given '.2 I shall argue that these features are in fundamental conflict with one another, and, further, that the philosophy of Aquinas provides resources for a resolution of the problems which give rise to the conflict. Sellars has himself given an estimate of Thomism, which he treats with some respect , as making common cause with him in its repudiation of 'idealism', but which he ultimately finds wanting.3 A treatment of Sellars from the Thomist point of view may thus be not without interest. Sellars by no means capitulates to modern anti-metaphysical fashions; in fact his view of the role of philosophy has a refreshingly old-fashioned ring about it. 'The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated', he says, 'is to understand how things in the broadest sense of the term hang together in the broadest sense of the term.' 4 This could of course be heartily endorsed by any recalcitrant metaphysician , including the Thomist. What case is there for saying that a high veneration of science , as liable to tell us the truth about things, is in basic conflict with the view that ' the given ' is a myth? That there is some prima facie case is clear enough, when one considers the reasons for supposing that science is apt to tell us the truth about the matters with which it deals. Scientific method 1 W. C. Sellars, Science, Perception and Reality (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963), 173. All references not otherwise assigned will be to that work. 2 140, 161, etc. 3 4lff. 4 1. 223 HUGO MEYNELL is a matter of propounding and testing hypotheses; and to test a hypothesis is to appeal to facts or to phenomena which are as they are whether one maintains the hypothesis or not. That is to say, they are in some sense 'given ', in that it is not up to the investigator whether they are so or not; he has to look and see whether they are so. Why do the oxygen theory of combustion, and Rutherford's theory of the atom, form a part of science, in a wa.y that the phlogiston theory of combustion and Thomson's theory of the atom do not? The obvious answer is, that there is a substantial range of data or (merely to replace Latin with English) 'givens' which go to confirm the former pair of theories as likely to be true, the latter pair as likely to be false. It is not unfashionable at present to regard ' science ' as merely a conglomerate of propositions stated as true by those prestigious persons called 'scientists' in their professional capacity. If this is so, it appears arbitrary to maintain that these propositions are liable to be true, let alone that' science is the measure of all things'. One may, however, regard the propositions constitutive of science as essentially the result of the application of a method, and liable to be true of the matters with which it deals because and insofar as the method has been followed. But it seems impossible to characterize the method without reference to what is in some sense given. The investigator, insofar as he is scientific, cannot merely invent pointer-readings, or say that the marks left by recording -pencils are just what he would choose; he has to take such things as they are 'given'. The considerations which I have just advanced suggest that this topic is of some importance-a point which seems worth making, since the topic of ' the given ', and of the ' sense-data ' in which it is often supposed to consist, has a very musty air about it, having been so much frequented by philosophers of a couple of generations ago. But short of some ' given', whatever it is held to consist in, in relation to which knowledge claims in science and elsewhere may be tested, I do not see...