The Myth of the Given today: Perspectives of realistic epistemology

Authors

  • Sergey V. Nikonenko St. Petersburg State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu17.2020.303

Abstract

The article deals with the reception of Wilfrid Sellars’s The Myth of the Given. The Problem consists in the ontological status of reality and the possibility of empirical knowledge. The ideas of well-known representatives of modern analytical epistemology are analyzed: J. Searle, H. Putnam, J. McDowell, G. Evans, C. Peacocke, W. Child, T. Rockmore, etc. An attempt is made in the article to show that The Myth of the Given is losing its relevance in modern humanistic realism where the world is already becoming a symbolic construct within the epistemological framework. Experience as such is no longer deemed as a linguistic phenomenon in modern epistemology. Sellars’s argumentation is convincing only if universalism, in terms of the interpretation of experience and reality, is criticized from the standpoint of radical pluralism of epistemological theories. In this case, indeed, no “Given” exists, viewed as a correlation between the substance of Sensitivity and the only possible world of Reality. It is illustrated that modern analytical epistemology is an arena of competition between two leading positions in the interpretation of the world: externalism and internalism. Despite the contradiction between these theoretical positions, they are in accord in recognizing a pluralistic worldview, which is, moreover, of a “humanistic” nature. These theories address neither “the given” nor “the world of facts”. The main trouble with The Myth of the Given is the lack of criteria of objectivity in any act of experience. 

 

Keywords:

epistemology, analytical philosophy, experience, reality, data, objectivity

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References

References

1. Sellars, W. (1973), Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, Empirical Knowledge, New York: Englewood Cliffs, pp. 471–541.

2. Rockmore, T. (1997), Recent Analytical Philosophy and Idealism, Pervii Rossiiskii philosophskii congress, t. VIII, St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg University Press, pp. 280–282.

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11. Child, W. (1994), Causality, Interpretation and the Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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13. Strawson, P. F. (1978), Perception and Its Object, Perception and Identity, London: Macmillan, pp. 45–57.

14. Pears, D. (2006), Paradox and Platitude in Wittgenstein’s Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

15. Searle, J. (1995), The Construction of Social Reality, New York: Free Press.

16. Kripke, S. A. (1980), Naming and Necessity, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

17. Putnam, H. (1983), Philosophical Papers, vol. III, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

18. Putnam, H. (1990), Realism with a Human Face, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

19. Papineau, D. (1985), Realism and Epistemology, Mind, vol. XCIV, no. 375, pp. 367–388.

20. McDowell, J. (1990), Mind and World, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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Published

2020-09-30

How to Cite

Nikonenko, S. V. (2020). The Myth of the Given today: Perspectives of realistic epistemology. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies, 36(3), 452–459. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu17.2020.303

Issue

Vol. 36 No. 3 (2020): Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies

Section

Philosophy

License

Articles of "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies" are open access distributed under the terms of the License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University, which permits to the authors unrestricted distribution and self-archiving free of charge.