author
Roy Wood Sellars
1880–1973
A bold American philosopher who spent decades at the University of Michigan, he argued for a tough-minded, naturalistic view of mind, knowledge, and religion. His work helped shape critical realism and evolutionary naturalism in early 20th-century philosophy.
1 Audiobook
The Next Step in Religion: An Essay toward the Coming Renaissance
by Roy Wood Sellars
About the author
Born in Seaforth, Ontario, on July 9, 1880, Roy Wood Sellars became one of the major systematic philosophers of his generation. He earned both his B.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Michigan and spent most of his career teaching there, continuing to write and think well into old age.
Sellars is best known for developing critical realism and for defending what he called evolutionary naturalism—the idea that mind, value, and human life emerge from the natural world rather than standing apart from it. He also wrote on religion from a humanist perspective, trying to reconcile moral seriousness with a fully naturalistic outlook.
He died in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on September 5, 1973. Beyond his own books and essays, he is often remembered as an independent-minded philosopher who resisted intellectual fashions and kept building a broad, coherent worldview across a long career.