Sellars's ontological nominalism

Wilfrid Sellars is widely known for two positions that he calls “nominalism.” On the one hand, there his “psychological nominalism,” according to which any awareness might have of abstract entities—be they properties, relations, or facts—is a thoroughly linguistic affair, and so cannot be presupposed in thinking about process learning (first) language. other ontological nominalism, world, as it itself, fundamentally world concrete particulars does not ultimately contain such things propositionally-structured facts. clearly takes these sorts “nominalism” go together. However, most influential inheritors Sellars's philosophy, Robert Brandom, thinks do not. Brandom endorses former, but denies latter “is end much intelligible.” In this paper, I articulate connection between psychological nominalism draw on Brandom's own development functional role semantics argue, against only harmonizes with rest philosophical commitments, actually made fully intelligible by very aspect theory himself develops.