The Castañeda–Sellars Correspondence, 1956–1967

Abstract This correspondence consists of letters exchanged between Sellars and Hector-Neri Castañeda in 1956 and 1967. The 1956 correspondence deals primarily with the early (Methodos) version of “Intention, Imperatives, and the Logic of ‘Ought’” (IIO). Castañeda argues (contra Sellars) that there are valid inferences not only among intentions, but also among commands, promises, and other nonassertoric speech acts; and he further offers criticisms of various aspects of Sellars’s logic of intentions such as the requirement that the “shall”-operator may not appear within the scope of logical operators. The later correspondence concerns “Form and Content in Ethical Theory,” most of which was incorporated into Chapter 7 of Science and Metaphysics. Castañeda addresses what he takes to be ambiguities and weaknesses in Sellars’s logic of intentions, such as whether Sellars’s notion of “reasonableness” is a semantic or pragmatic value, why the shall-operator cannot embed, and whether Sellars is consistent in his projection of nomologicals into the practical realm. Both sets of correspondence contain Sellar’s replies to Castañeda’s arguments.