PSAPE – Summer-Autumn 2025/6

In this series we will discuss naturalism, representationalism, empiricism, and expressivism, philosophical ideas that are significant to the Pittsburgh School. As with others we have previously discussed, we will apply these ideas to contemporary educational debates.

We will start with by considering the ideas of Huw Price. Price is not typically considered a member of the Pittsburgh School, but there are important affinities and intersections between his work and that of Sellars and Brandom. We then move to McDowell’s interpretation of empiricism in the light of Sellar’s EPM. Then, we consider Brandom’s arguments in the introduction and chapter one of the text below. The chapter is rather long so the readings are broken down into shorter sections which should make more sense and be more manageable. We finish with a paper by Ray Brassier.

Fortunately, there are free online versions of all texts at the links below. The switch from reading mostly journal articles in previous series to book chapters (and sections of book chapters) in the forthcoming series could be a welcome change of focus. 

Let me know any thoughts you have. Looking forward to our discussions!

• Huw Price  https://prce.hu/w/preprints/IntroductionFinal.pdf 
• McDowell https://sites.pitt.edu/~rbrandom/Courses/2023%20Sellars/Sellars%20texts/McDowell%20Having%20the%20World%20in%20View--Sellars%20Essays.pdf 
• Brandom  https://sites.pitt.edu/~rbrandom/Texts/From_Empiricism_to_Expressivism.pdf
• Ray Brassier https://uberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/ray-brassier-concepts-and-objects.pdf 

28th July 2025: Naturalism Without Mirrors – Huw Price

pp. 5-36. Chapter 1 Moving the mirror aside

1.1 The matching game; 1.2 Placement strategies; 1.3 Quasi-realism and globalisation; 1.4 Naturalism with representationalism; 1.5 Avoiding the wrong kind of pragmatism; 1.6 Keeping the lid on metaphysics; 1.7 Keeping the lid on semantics; 1.8 The true role of truth and judgement; 1.9 Two-layered language; 1.10 Two notions of representation; 1.11 Matching as interpretation;
1.12 Is Representationalism obvious?; 1.13 A telescope for metaphysics?;
1.14 The status of science; 1.15 Naturalism without mirrors

25th August 2025: Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars - McDowell

pp. 221-238. Why Is Sellars’s Essay Called “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind”?

Sections 1-8 (i.e., the whole essay)

29th September 2025: From Empiricism to Expressivism: Brandom Reads Sellars - Brandom

pp. 1-29. Introduction

1. Kant, Pragmatism, and the “New Way of Words”; 2. Contingencies of Biography; 3. The Present Volume

20th October 2025: From Empiricism to Expressivism: Brandom Reads Sellars - Brandom

pp. 30-55. Chapter One: Categories and Noumena: Two Kantian Axes of Sellars’s Thought

Part I: On the Way to a Theory of the Categories; 1. Introduction; 2. Categories in Kant; 3. Categories in Sellars; 4. Categories Today

10th November 2025: From Empiricism to Expressivism: Brandom Reads Sellars - Brandom

pp. 56-81Chapter One: Categories and Noumena: Two Kantian Axes of Sellars’s Thought

Part II: Phenomena and Noumena; 1. Introduction; 2. The Issue; 3. A Diagnosis; 4. An Argument; 5. Consequences for Strongly Cross-Sortal Identities;
6. A Weaker Version of the Naturalistic Construal of the Phenomena/Noumena Distinction

1st December 2025: From Empiricism to Expressivism: Brandom Reads Sellars - Brandom

pp. 81-98 Chapter One: Categories and Noumena: Two Kantian Axes of Sellars’s Thought

7. Another Sellarsian Argument; 8. Expressive Pragmatic Naturalism; Conclusion

12th January 2025: Concepts and Objects - Ray Brassier