Sellarsian Picturing and Neo-Kantian Theories of Representation

Sellars’s long-neglected account of picturing has recently found more sympathetic interpretations. At the same time, there has been more sustained engagement with Sellars’s Kantianism. However, there has not yet been an inquiry into the notion of picturing in 19th and 20th century Neo-Kantian philosophy prior to Sellars. This chapter examines how neo-Kantians such as Helmholtz, Riehl, and Hertz developed ‘picture’ theories of representation to bring out epistemological consequences of post-Kantian developments in the sciences. Sellars’s version of the concept of picturing is considered in relation to these accounts, and is thus situated within a longer tradition of naturalistic interpretations of Kant.