A Sellarsian Approach to the Difference between Animal and Human Experience
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 April 2026
Sellars, like Kant, adopts a conception of what is required for experience which makes it seem as if nonhuman animals could not have experience. This follows from what I call the Sellars–Kant Principle (SKP): the experience of a world requires an integrated holistic interpretation of the world and of oneself as a subject in that world. Nonhuman animals seem to lack the conceptual resources for such interpretation and hence would seem to be unable to experience the world. I argue that the SKP should be replaced by what I call the Activity Domain Principle: the experience of a domain requires an integrated holistic interpretation of a domain and of oneself as an agent in that domain. I distinguish three different kinds of the ADP: ADP-A (animal agency), ADP-M (mental agency), and ADP-D (discursive agency). This allows us to accept what is right in the Sellars–Kant rejection of empiricism while avoiding the implication that nonhuman animals lack experience tout court.
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