Wilfrid Sellars
E157121
Wilfrid Sellars was a 20th-century American philosopher best known for his critiques of empiricism and foundationalism and for developing a systematic, scientifically informed account of knowledge and mind.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Wilfrid Sellars canonical | 9 |
| Wilfrid Sellars Society of contemporary philosophers | 1 |
| Wilfrid Stalker Sellars | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1345672 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Wilfrid Sellars Context triple: [Herbert Feigl, influenced, Wilfrid Sellars]
-
A.
Nelson Goodman
Nelson Goodman was an American philosopher best known for his influential work in logic, the philosophy of science, and aesthetics, particularly his "new riddle of induction" and theories of symbol systems.
-
B.
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam was a prominent 20th-century American philosopher known for his influential work in philosophy of mind, language, and science, including the development of functionalism and semantic externalism.
-
C.
Michael Dummett
Michael Dummett was a British philosopher renowned for his work in the philosophy of language, logic, and mathematics, and for his influential interpretations of analytic philosophy.
-
D.
Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine was a 20th-century American analytic philosopher and logician known for his work on ontological relativity, the indeterminacy of translation, and the critique of the analytic–synthetic distinction.
-
E.
P. F. Strawson
P. F. Strawson was a prominent 20th-century British analytic philosopher known for his influential work in philosophy of language, metaphysics, and the critique of Russell’s theory of descriptions.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Wilfrid Sellars Target entity description: Wilfrid Sellars was a 20th-century American philosopher best known for his critiques of empiricism and foundationalism and for developing a systematic, scientifically informed account of knowledge and mind.
-
A.
Nelson Goodman
Nelson Goodman was an American philosopher best known for his influential work in logic, the philosophy of science, and aesthetics, particularly his "new riddle of induction" and theories of symbol systems.
-
B.
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam was a prominent 20th-century American philosopher known for his influential work in philosophy of mind, language, and science, including the development of functionalism and semantic externalism.
-
C.
Michael Dummett
Michael Dummett was a British philosopher renowned for his work in the philosophy of language, logic, and mathematics, and for his influential interpretations of analytic philosophy.
-
D.
Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine was a 20th-century American analytic philosopher and logician known for his work on ontological relativity, the indeterminacy of translation, and the critique of the analytic–synthetic distinction.
-
E.
P. F. Strawson
P. F. Strawson was a prominent 20th-century British analytic philosopher known for his influential work in philosophy of language, metaphysics, and the critique of Russell’s theory of descriptions.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (52)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
20th-century philosopher
ⓘ
American philosopher ⓘ human ⓘ philosopher ⓘ |
| awardReceived | Guggenheim Fellowship ⓘ |
| birthDate | 1912-05-20 ⓘ |
| countryOfCitizenship | United States of America ⓘ |
| deathDate | 1989-07-02 ⓘ |
| educatedAt |
Harvard University
ⓘ
Oriel College, Oxford NERFINISHED ⓘ University of Michigan ⓘ |
| employer |
Iowa State College
ⓘ
University of Minnesota ⓘ University of Pittsburgh ⓘ Yale University ⓘ |
| familyName | Sellars ⓘ |
| fieldOfWork |
epistemology
ⓘ
metaphysics ⓘ philosophy ⓘ philosophy of language ⓘ philosophy of mind ⓘ philosophy of science ⓘ |
| fullName |
Wilfrid Sellars
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Wilfrid Stalker Sellars
|
| givenName | Wilfrid ⓘ |
| influenced |
John McDowell
ⓘ
Paul Churchland ⓘ Robert Brandom ⓘ Ruth Millikan ⓘ Wilfrid Sellars self-linksurface differs ⓘ
surface form:
Wilfrid Sellars Society of contemporary philosophers
|
| influencedBy |
C. I. Lewis
ⓘ
G. W. F. Hegel ⓘ Immanuel Kant ⓘ Ludwig Wittgenstein ⓘ Rudolf Carnap ⓘ |
| knownFor |
critique of empiricism
ⓘ
critique of foundationalism ⓘ systematic, scientifically informed account of knowledge and mind ⓘ |
| languageOfWorkOrName | English ⓘ |
| movement | analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| notableIdea |
critique of the Myth of the Given
ⓘ
inferential role semantics (proto-version) ⓘ normative functionalism about mental states ⓘ scientific image vs. manifest image ⓘ synoptic vision of knowledge ⓘ |
| notableWork |
Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind
ⓘ
Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes ⓘ Science, Perception and Reality ⓘ |
| philosophicalSchool |
naturalism
ⓘ
scientific realism ⓘ |
| placeOfBirth |
Ann Arbor
ⓘ
surface form:
Ann Arbor, Michigan
|
| placeOfDeath | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ⓘ |
| positionHeld | Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Wilfrid Sellars Description of subject: Wilfrid Sellars was a 20th-century American philosopher best known for his critiques of empiricism and foundationalism and for developing a systematic, scientifically informed account of knowledge and mind.
Referenced by (11)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Wilfrid Stalker Sellars
this entity surface form:
Wilfrid Sellars Society of contemporary philosophers