The Myth of the Given is Wilfrid Sellars’s name for the assumption that empirical knowledge rests on items simply given to consciousness — presented directly, infallibly, and prior to all theory. His attack on that assumption, in “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” (1956), reshaped epistemology and philosophy of mind alike.

What the Myth Is

The picture runs so deep in modern epistemology and philosophy of mind that most theories operate inside it without noticing. On it, the given items present themselves to consciousness directly, fully, and prior to interpretation, and they then serve as the foundational evidence base from which all further empirical knowledge is derived by inference.

Different epistemological programs identify different items as the given: sense-data, sensory impressions, qualia, raw feels, immediate phenomenal items, intuitive given perceptual experiences. The specific identification varies; the structural role doesn’t. Whatever the given is, it’s supposed to do two jobs:

1. Be immediately apprehended — non-conceptual, prior to interpretation, available without prior knowledge.
2. Be epistemically authoritative — capable of serving as a reason for further empirical beliefs.

Sellars’s argument: nothing can do both jobs. The Myth is the assumption that something can.

The Structural Diagnosis

The argument runs by examining what each job requires.

To be immediately apprehended, to be there for consciousness without prior conceptual work, an item must arrive before interpretation. It must be pre-conceptual. The peasant looking at an after-image does not need to know any physical theory to have the after-image; the after-image is just there for him. This is supposed to be the foundationalist’s bedrock.

To serve as a reason for empirical beliefs, to be the kind of thing that can be evidence for a claim, an item must enter into inferential relations with beliefs. It must be the kind of thing that can stand in logical relations to propositions. Reasons are propositional or quasi-propositional; they support claims by entering the logical space of justification.

But nothing can be both pre-conceptual and propositional. Anything pre-conceptual is below the level at which justification operates. Anything that can serve as a reason has already been conceptualized — has entered the logical space of reasons, in Sellars’s later phrase. The supposed raw given is not capable of grounding inference; the supposed evidence-giving given is not raw.

The structural argument, then: the Myth depends on an item being simultaneously below the line of conceptualization (to be foundational) and above it (to be epistemically authoritative). No item can occupy both positions, so the foundational role is impossible to fill.

The diagnosis has not gone unchallenged. Foundationalists — Laurence BonJour prominently, after his own conversion from coherentism — reply that direct acquaintance with experience can justify beliefs without itself being conceptual, and the debate over whether anything can play that role remains live.

The Jonesean Myth as Positive Reconstruction

Having demolished the foundationalist picture, Sellars offers a positive story about how thought-talk and sensation-talk actually function. The story runs through a fictional anthropology — the “myth of Jones.”

Imagine a community that has only behavioral and observational vocabulary. They describe what people do, what they say out loud, what their bodies are doing. They have no vocabulary for inner episodes — no talk of thoughts, feelings, sensations as inner items.

A genius Jones in this community develops a theory. According to the theory, overt verbal utterances are the culmination of a process that begins with inner episodes — episodes modeled on the antecedent practice of public discourse. These inner episodes, which Jones calls thoughts, are theoretical posits, introduced to explain patterns in overt behavior. They are not discovered by inward inspection; they are inferred from the explanatory work they do.

The community then learns to report its own thoughts, but only because the theory has been put in place. Self-reports of inner episodes are not direct readings of pre-given inner items; they are exercises of a theoretical vocabulary applied reflexively.

The Jonesean myth is Sellars’s anti-Cartesian alternative to the inner-theater picture. Thought-talk is theoretical, modeled on the antecedent practice of public discourse, downstream from speech-talk. The supposed inner items are not directly given; they are conceptual posits.

This positive reconstruction bears directly on the treatment of inner speech (the inner voice as internalized public speech, not as a pre-given inner thing). See Inner Speech.

Why the Myth Matters for Philosophy of Mind

Sellars’s structural diagnosis is upstream of several moves in contemporary anti-Cartesian philosophy of mind. Three deserve specific naming.

Anti-qualia. Some qualia theories cast phenomenal character as an intrinsic, immediately accessible given, and Sellars’s diagnosis applies directly to that foundationalist form. A sophisticated mental-paint theorist can instead treat qualia as intrinsic properties of experiential states without making them perceived inner objects or infallible evidence. Sellars therefore removes one major route to qualia realism; the further identity argument in Chapter 6 must answer the stronger property-based rival. See Qualia.

Anti-sense-datum theory. Sense-data are inner colored items, directly apprehended, infallibly characterized — the perceptual version of the Myth. Sellars’s structural attack applies straightforwardly: sense-data can’t do the epistemic work the theory assigns them. See Indirect Realism and Sense-Data.

Anti-Cartesian inner theater. The inner theater is the picture in which inner items are presented to an inner observer. The “presented” relation is supposed to be immediate and authoritative — exactly the Mythic role. Sellars’s diagnosis is part of the broader case against the inner theater. See The Inner Theater.

In each case, the Myth’s structure is the same: an item is supposed to be both raw (so it can be foundational) and reason-giving (so it can do epistemic work). Each case fails for the same reason.

What Replaces the Myth

The Myth’s collapse leaves a question: what does ground empirical knowledge? Sellars’s answer is that empirical knowledge is grounded holistically in a network of beliefs, observations, and inferences, none of which has the foundational role the given was supposed to play. Particular perceptual reports are reliable insofar as they are produced by trustworthy mechanisms operating in normal conditions; they are not reliable because they bottom out in self-authenticating inner items.

McDowell develops the line for our time: empirical knowledge involves both receptivity (the world impacts us) and spontaneity (our conceptual capacities are involved at every level). There is no level at which receptivity alone, before spontaneity kicks in, delivers a determinate content. See Phenomenology for related discussion.

On this picture, phenomenal character is real; introspective reports are reliable; perceptual experience does ground beliefs about the world. None of this requires the Mythic foundation. The patterns of reliability, the holistic structure of justification, the way concepts enter at every level — these do the work the Myth claimed only an inner given could do.

My View

The Myth-of-the-Given diagnosis is one of my standing tools. I reach for it in three places especially:

• The inner-theater picture — Sellars’s diagnosis traces its lineage; the Myth is what gives the picture its epistemological backbone.
• The transparency of experience — partly an application of Sellars: there is no self-authenticating inner object that introspection apprehends before all interpretation. Introspection returns the world under an intentional mode, not an unconceptualized inner item; the perceptual content may nevertheless be nonconceptual in grain.
• Why dualism feels right — the dualist intuition partly trades on the Myth: the felt quality of experience seems like a given that physical description leaves out. Diagnosed via Sellars, the intuition loses its evidential force.

Related Concepts

• Anti-Reification — the methodology under which Sellars’s diagnosis lives; the Myth is a structural reification — pre-conceptual items elevated to evidence
• Indirect Realism and Sense-Data — sense-datum theory as a target of the Myth diagnosis
• Qualia — qualia realism as a target of the Myth diagnosis
• The Inner Theater — the broader picture the Myth sustains; the Myth gives the inner theater its epistemological role
• Transparency — the positive alternative to Mythic givenness in perceptual experience; introspection returns the world, not an inner given
• Phenomenology — phenomenology done well does not commit to the Myth; phenomenology done foundationalist-style does
• Inner Speech — the Jonesean myth as positive reconstruction of inner-speech talk; thought-talk as theoretical posit
• The Hard Problem of Consciousness — the Hard Problem partly trades on the Mythic intuition; once the Myth goes, the gap reframes