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Sellars ’ “ Rylean Myth ”
Willem A. deVries
Sellars , Wilfrid . “ Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind , ” in Minnesota
Studies in the Philosophy of Science , vol. I , edited by Herbert Feigl and
Michael Scriven , 253 – 329 . Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press ,
1956 . (EPM) Reprinted with additional footnotes in Science, Perception
and Reality . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963; reissued by
Ridgeview Publishing Company in 1991. (SPR) Published separately as
Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind: With an Introduction by
Richard Rorty and a Study Guide by Robert Brandom , edited by Robert
Brandom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. Also
reprinted in W. deVries and T. Triplett, Knowledge, Mind, and the
Given: A Reading of Sellars ’ “ Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. ”
Cambridge, MA: Hackett, 2000. (KMG)
___. “ Intentionality and the Mental , ” a correspondence with Roderick
Chisholm, in Minnesota Studies in The Philosophy of Science , vol. II ,
edited by Herbert Feigl , Michael Scriven , and Grover Maxwell , 507 – 39 .
Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press , 1957 . Reprinted in
Intentionality, Mind and Language , edited by Ausonio Marras. Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 1972.
Marras , Ausonio . “ On Sellars ’ Linguistic Theory of Conceptual Activity . ”
Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2 ( 1973 ): 471 – 83 .
___. “ Reply to Sellars . ” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2 ( 1973 ):
495 – 501 .
___. “ Sellars on Thought and Language . ” Nous 7 ( 1973 ): 152 – 63 .
___. “ Sellars ’ Behaviourism: A Reply to Fred Wilson . ” Philosophical Studies
30 ( 1976 ): 413 – 18 .
___. “ The Behaviourist Foundation of Sellars ’ Semantics . ” Dialogue
(Canada) 16 ( 1977 ): 664 – 75 .
Perner , Josef . Understanding the Representational Mind . Cambridge, MA :
The MIT Press , 1991 .
Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy,
First Edition. Edited by Michael Bruce and Steven Barbone.
© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
194 Willem A. deVries
The Cartesian tradition teaches that people have direct, privileged knowledge
of their own mental states and that such knowledge possesses the
highest epistemic warrant. For example, Descartes ’ wax example argument
in the Second Meditation concludes that he knows his own mental states
“ fi rst and best. ” The concepts employed in such knowledge are usually
assumed to be either innate or derived by abstraction from the occurrence
of those mental states. This is crucial to theories that make our knowledge
of our own subjective mental states basic , for the foundation of our knowledge
must be independent of all other knowledge. Thus, according to such
foundationalist theories, both our knowledge of particular mental states
and our knowledge of the concepts employed in the knowledge of particular
mental states are “ givens. ” [See the argument that the given is a myth
(#48).]
Early in “ Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, ” Sellars attacked the
idea that there could be a given in the sense that the Cartesian tradition
demands, but that critique could not be very convincing without an alternative
explanation of how we acquire concepts of the mental and why knowledge
of our own mental states is immediate and privileged. So Sellars needs
to establish that there is a coherent alternative to the traditional view that
mentalistic concepts are given, either innately or abstracted directly from
particular mental states. This is the point of the Rylean Myth. The Rylean
Myth and the critique of the Myth of the Given reinforce each other,
strengthening the conclusion that not even knowledge of subjective mental
states is given.
Concepts of the mental, therefore, are not fundamentally different in
kind or mode of acquisition and application from other empirical concepts.
Early - twentieth - century psychology (#93) sought to legitimate the empirical
investigation of mind by construing psychology as the science of behavior
and eschewing the need to talk of inner, subjective states. But by the time
of Sellars ’ essay, it was increasingly acknowledged that a narrowly behavioristic
approach to mind, both in philosophy and in psychology, was
inadequate. Sellars ’ Rylean Myth shows how intersubjective, empirical concepts
of subjective states are possible, arguing that they are like theoretical
Triplett , Timm , and Willem deVries . “ Is Sellars ’ s Rylean Hypothesis Plausible?
A Dialogue , ” in The Self - Correcting Enterprise: Essays on Wilfrid
Sellars , Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the
Humanities, vol. 9 , edited by Michael P. Wolf , 85 – 114 . New York :
Rodopi , 2006 .
Wellman , Henry M. The Child ’ s Theory of Mind . Cambridge, MA : The MIT
Press , 1990 .
Sellars’ “Rylean Myth” 195
concepts. If so, the mental is as open to intersubjective empirical investigation
as any other realm within the empirical world. Furthermore, if our
concepts of the mental are empirical concepts acquired via theory postulation,
like the concepts of unobservable micro - objects postulated in the
natural sciences, then there is little reason to think that they apply to objects
of an entirely different kind from other natural objects. This removes a
motivation for Cartesian dualism.
Sellars ’ approach to mentalistic concepts has been important for cognitive
science, for it legitimates a naturalistic approach to the mind that
nonetheless respects the internality of mental states. Indeed, it inspired the
“ theory theory ” approach to folk psychology, a research program in cognitive
science that develops the idea that in early childhood people acquire
and learn to apply a theory - like conceptual structure that enables them to
interpret the behavior of other people (see Perner and Wellman).
Sellars ’ argument takes the form of a thought experiment. He asks us to
imagine a community that lacks concepts of inner psychological states,
although it possesses a complex language for describing and explaining
objects and events in the world. This community also possesses a behaviorist
’ s ability to describe and to explain human behavior, as well as metalinguistic
abilities to describe and to prescribe linguistic behavior. Such a
community, Sellars then argues, can reasonably increase its explanatory
resources by extending its language/conceptual system by postulating unobservable
states internal to each person. Further, there is a motive to postulate

49

Sellars ’ “ Rylean Myth ”

Willem A. deVries

Sellars , Wilfrid . “ Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind , ” in Minnesota

Studies in the Philosophy of Science , vol. I , edited by Herbert Feigl and

Michael Scriven , 253 – 329 . Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press ,

1956 . (EPM) Reprinted with additional footnotes in Science, Perception

and Reality . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963; reissued by

Ridgeview Publishing Company in 1991. (SPR) Published separately as

Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind: With an Introduction by

Richard Rorty and a Study Guide by Robert Brandom , edited by Robert

Brandom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. Also

reprinted in W. deVries and T. Triplett, Knowledge, Mind, and the

Given: A Reading of Sellars ’ “ Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. ”

Cambridge, MA: Hackett, 2000. (KMG)

___. “ Intentionality and the Mental , ” a correspondence with Roderick

Chisholm, in Minnesota Studies in The Philosophy of Science , vol. II ,

edited by Herbert Feigl , Michael Scriven , and Grover Maxwell , 507 – 39 .

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press , 1957 . Reprinted in

Intentionality, Mind and Language , edited by Ausonio Marras. Chicago:

University of Illinois Press, 1972.

Marras , Ausonio . “ On Sellars ’ Linguistic Theory of Conceptual Activity . ”

Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2 ( 1973 ): 471 – 83 .

___. “ Reply to Sellars . ” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2 ( 1973 ):

495 – 501 .

___. “ Sellars on Thought and Language . ” Nous 7 ( 1973 ): 152 – 63 .

___. “ Sellars ’ Behaviourism: A Reply to Fred Wilson . ” Philosophical Studies

30 ( 1976 ): 413 – 18 .

___. “ The Behaviourist Foundation of Sellars ’ Semantics . ” Dialogue

(Canada) 16 ( 1977 ): 664 – 75 .

Perner , Josef . Understanding the Representational Mind . Cambridge, MA :

The MIT Press , 1991 .

Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy,

First Edition. Edited by Michael Bruce and Steven Barbone.

194 Willem A. deVries

The Cartesian tradition teaches that people have direct, privileged knowledge

of their own mental states and that such knowledge possesses the

highest epistemic warrant. For example, Descartes ’ wax example argument

in the Second Meditation concludes that he knows his own mental states

“ fi rst and best. ” The concepts employed in such knowledge are usually

assumed to be either innate or derived by abstraction from the occurrence

of those mental states. This is crucial to theories that make our knowledge

of our own subjective mental states basic , for the foundation of our knowledge

must be independent of all other knowledge. Thus, according to such

foundationalist theories, both our knowledge of particular mental states

and our knowledge of the concepts employed in the knowledge of particular

mental states are “ givens. ” [See the argument that the given is a myth

(#48).]

Early in “ Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, ” Sellars attacked the

idea that there could be a given in the sense that the Cartesian tradition

demands, but that critique could not be very convincing without an alternative

explanation of how we acquire concepts of the mental and why knowledge

of our own mental states is immediate and privileged. So Sellars needs

to establish that there is a coherent alternative to the traditional view that

mentalistic concepts are given, either innately or abstracted directly from

particular mental states. This is the point of the Rylean Myth. The Rylean

Myth and the critique of the Myth of the Given reinforce each other,

strengthening the conclusion that not even knowledge of subjective mental

states is given.

Concepts of the mental, therefore, are not fundamentally different in

kind or mode of acquisition and application from other empirical concepts.

Early - twentieth - century psychology (#93) sought to legitimate the empirical

investigation of mind by construing psychology as the science of behavior

and eschewing the need to talk of inner, subjective states. But by the time

of Sellars ’ essay, it was increasingly acknowledged that a narrowly behavioristic

approach to mind, both in philosophy and in psychology, was

inadequate. Sellars ’ Rylean Myth shows how intersubjective, empirical concepts

of subjective states are possible, arguing that they are like theoretical

Triplett , Timm , and Willem deVries . “ Is Sellars ’ s Rylean Hypothesis Plausible?

A Dialogue , ” in The Self - Correcting Enterprise: Essays on Wilfrid

Sellars , Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the

Humanities, vol. 9 , edited by Michael P. Wolf , 85 – 114 . New York :

Rodopi , 2006 .

Wellman , Henry M. The Child ’ s Theory of Mind . Cambridge, MA : The MIT

Press , 1990 .

Sellars’ “Rylean Myth” 195

concepts. If so, the mental is as open to intersubjective empirical investigation

as any other realm within the empirical world. Furthermore, if our

concepts of the mental are empirical concepts acquired via theory postulation,

like the concepts of unobservable micro - objects postulated in the

natural sciences, then there is little reason to think that they apply to objects

of an entirely different kind from other natural objects. This removes a

motivation for Cartesian dualism.

Sellars ’ approach to mentalistic concepts has been important for cognitive

science, for it legitimates a naturalistic approach to the mind that

nonetheless respects the internality of mental states. Indeed, it inspired the

“ theory theory ” approach to folk psychology, a research program in cognitive

science that develops the idea that in early childhood people acquire

and learn to apply a theory - like conceptual structure that enables them to

interpret the behavior of other people (see Perner and Wellman).

Sellars ’ argument takes the form of a thought experiment. He asks us to

imagine a community that lacks concepts of inner psychological states,

although it possesses a complex language for describing and explaining

objects and events in the world. This community also possesses a behaviorist

’ s ability to describe and to explain human behavior, as well as metalinguistic

abilities to describe and to prescribe linguistic behavior. Such a

community, Sellars then argues, can reasonably increase its explanatory

resources by extending its language/conceptual system by postulating unobservable

states internal to each person. Further, there is a motive to postulate