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Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes (International Library of Philosophy and Scientific Method Series)

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This work offers a systematic presentation of the views which Professor Sellars has formulated on a wide spectrum of philosophical topics over the past twenty years. The argument of the book has an interesting kinship with Kant's attempt to reconcile the insights of rationalism with empiricism, and it is presented within a framework of a critical exposition of Kant's view on fundamental topics in metaphysics, epistemology and ethical theory.

In the early chapters, Kant's attempt to disentangle the respective roles in experience of sensibility and understanding is sympatheticaly explored. The theory of mental acts which is the heart of the Kantian system is carefully analysized and subsequently given a novel twist which is then developed into a theory of intentionality and the mental. In the fifth chapter, levels of factual discourse are distinguished and shown to presuppose a basic level in which conceptual items as items in rerum nature 'represent' or 'picture' the way things are. The distinctions drawn enable a definition of 'reality' and '(ideal) truth' in terms of adequate representation.

The concluding chapter on objectivity and intersubjectivity in ethics is, in a sense, the keystone of the argument, since the book stresses throughout the normative aspects of the concepts of meaning, existence and truth. The chapter can alsoo be read separately as an interpretation and defence of Kant's ethical theory.
--- from book's dustjacket