Return to APA Newsletters IndexThe following appeared in Volume 97, Number 2 (Spring, 1998) of the APA Newsletters
Problems from Wilfrid Sellars
http://csmaclab-www.uchicago.edu/philosophyProject/sellars/sellars.html
Site moderated by: Andrew Chrucky
Andchrucky@aol.com
Reviewed by:
Daniel BonevacThe University of Chicago Philosophy Project provides " ... a forum for electronically mediated scholarly discussion of philosophical works." Most parts of this project exactly fit this description; they are moderated discussions of somewhat specialized philosophical topics. However, the section of the project under review here goes well beyond the scope of a discussion forum. It is a wonderful web page devoted to the life and work of Wilfrid Sellars. Those lucky enough to have known and worked with Wilfrid, as I was, can enjoy hours of reminiscences sparked by memorial essays, reflections, and photographs. But the real strength of the page is scholarly, in its cataloguing of Sellarsiana and its discussions of his work. Andrew Chrucky has put a great deal of effort into the scholarly materials available here, and it shows.
Visitors to this site will find a comprehensive bibliography of Sellars's writings, as well as an excellent bibliography of writings on Sellars's work, including a separate list of dissertations devoted to his philosophy. There is a definition problem here, since Sellars wrote influentially on central philosophical themes. Chrucky has sensibly adopted a policy of including only those pieces that comment directly on Sellars's work. There is a list of Sellars's Ph.D. students, from Robert Turnbull in 1952 to Johanna Seibt in 1990; a list of correspondences between Sellars and other well-known philosophers (most with accompanying text); and a useful list of authors and works cited by Sellars. Throughout the entire site, there are links to the texts of the writings listed whenever they are available. At the present time, only a small fraction of the many bibliographic items include on-line texts. The texts that are available have been converted into hypertext format by Chrucky. Fortunately, some very important texts are present, including Sellars's "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind."
Some of the most important aspects of the page are still fragmentary. The Sellars Forum contains a lengthy, insightful essay by Jay Rosenberg organized around "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind," with discussion by participants on some portions (including a substantial and thought-provoking essay by Marc Lange). Something similar from Hector Neri-Castaņeda is planned but does not yet appear. There is only one entry under the heading "Teaching Sellars," a superb course outline by Marc Lange. Additions would be very helpful, since the synoptic nature and historical sensitivity of Sellars's writings make them even more difficult to teach than they are to read.
The Problems from Wilfrid Sellars web site offers anyone interested in Sellars's philosophy a wealth of texts, references, and other scholarly materials. Planned additions should make it even more valuable as a forum for discussion of Sellars's philosophy and its influence.
NEWSLETTER ON PHILOSOPHY AND COMPUTERS