Sellars, Wilfrid

"Justification is holistic; individual beliefs are justified only relative to a system."

"Science progresses by revising not just hypotheses but fundamental conceptual frameworks."

"The appearance-reality distinction requires a framework within which to make sense of it."

"Understanding requires recognizing that concepts have both sense and reference."

"The problem of universals arises from mistaken assumptions about the nature of abstraction."

"Our rational practices constitute a form of life that cannot be reduced to physical mechanisms."

"Normativity is not mysterious; it is simply the structure of rational discourse."

"The manifest image and the scientific image are two different ways of understanding the world, and philosophy must reconcile them."

"To be is to be the value of a variable in a true sentence."

"Language and thought are intrinsically connected; we cannot separate the structure of our language from the structure of our thinking."

"The myth of the given is one of the most stubborn illusions in epistemology."

"Persons are not physical objects, nor are they purely immaterial souls; they are integrated systems of capacities and dispositions."

"The grammar of our ordinary language often misleads us about the fundamental nature of reality."

"Scientific knowledge does not exist in isolation from the conceptual frameworks we bring to experience."

"To understand meaning is to understand how a word functions within an entire system of language."

"Intentionality cannot be reduced to mere physical states; it is irreducibly relational."

"The normativity of language use cannot be explained in purely naturalistic terms."

"Our concepts are not passive mirrors of reality but active ways of organizing experience."

"The space of reasons is autonomous and cannot be collapsed into the space of causes."

"Facts do not exist independently of conceptual schemes; they are always interpreted through frameworks."

"Consciousness involves the capacity to think about one's own thinking."

"Abstract entities are not mysterious otherworldly objects but functional roles within language."

"The analytic and synthetic distinction cannot be maintained with complete rigor."

"Sense experience must be structured by conceptual content to count as knowledge."

"Categories of thought are refined and revised through scientific investigation."

"Epistemic justification requires standing in the right relationship to reality, not merely having the right internal states."

"The authority of science comes from its systematic integration of experience into coherent theories."

"Mental states are characterized by their functional roles within a system of dispositions and capacities."

"Language use is fundamentally a normative social practice, not merely a causal mechanism."

"The private language argument reveals something important about the conceptual foundations of communication."