Vol. 44 No. 1 (2024)
Articles

Wilfrid Sellars on Social Ontology: Practical Reasoning, Instrumental Connections, and Social Constraint

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  • José Giromini
José Giromini
Instituto de Humanidades, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Argentina.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36446/af.e508

Published 2024-05-07

Keywords

  • Ontología social,
  • Intenciones,
  • Estructuras causales,
  • Coerción,
  • Normatividad
  • Social Ontology,
  • Intentions,
  • Causal Structures,
  • Constraint,
  • Normativity
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Abstract

This paper identifies in the works of Wilfrid Sellars two theses that are relevant to the contemporary debate in social ontology. The first one states that we can understand social reality as partially composed of causal or constraining structures. The second states that social reality appears to agents as constituted by constraining structures. The paper defends these interpretative theses by drawing on Sellars’ writings on practical philosophy, and specially on his account of the functioning of hypothetical and categorical imperatives. Moreover, the paper contrasts this causal interpretation with the normative conceptions that prevail both in contemporary social ontology and among Sellars’ followers.

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