Wilfrid Sellars and the Foundations of Normativity

Peter Olen is a faculty member in Philosophy at Lake Sumter State College, USA. He has presented papers at numerous national and international conferences, and has published articles on the history and philosophy of science, the history of analytic philosophy, normativity, and American philosophy. His most recent publication is “The Realist Challenge to Conceptual Pragmatism” in The European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy.

• Acknowledgements.- Introduction.- Wilfrid Sellars’ Early Historical Context.- Pure Pragmatics.- The Reception History of Pure Pragmatics.- Beyond Formalism.- Two Conceptions of Normativity.- Conclusion.- Appendix: Drafts and Letters.- Bibliography.

“In this very informative volume, Peter Olen addresses questions that are of interest both to philosophers generally and to students of Sellars’s thought in particular. … Given the significance of these questions and the prominence of Sellars as one of the leading Anglo-American philosophers of the twentieth century, Olen’s book is a welcome contribution. … readers will gain much from Olen’s contribution to understanding Sellars’s views on questions central to the philosopher’s agenda.” (William A. Rottschaefer, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 55 (4), October, 2017)