Normativity and Naturalism in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Normativity and Naturalism in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences PDF Author: Mark Risjord
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317386027
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
Normativity and Naturalism in the Social Sciences engages with a central debate within the philosophy of social science: whether social scientific explanation necessitates an appeal to norms, and if so, whether appeals to normativity can be rendered "scientific." This collection brings together contributions from a diverse group of philosophers who explore a broad but thematically unified set of questions, many of which stem from an ongoing debate between Stephen Turner and Joseph Rouse (both contributors to this volume) on the role of naturalism in the philosophy of the social sciences. Informed by recent developments in both philosophy and the social sciences, this volume will set the benchmark for contemporary discussions about normativity and naturalism. This collection will be relevant to philosophers of social science, philosophers in interested in the rule following and metaphysics of normativity, and theoretically oriented social scientists.

Normativity and Naturalism in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Normativity and Naturalism in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences PDF Author: Mark Risjord
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317386027
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 309

Get Book Here

Book Description
Normativity and Naturalism in the Social Sciences engages with a central debate within the philosophy of social science: whether social scientific explanation necessitates an appeal to norms, and if so, whether appeals to normativity can be rendered "scientific." This collection brings together contributions from a diverse group of philosophers who explore a broad but thematically unified set of questions, many of which stem from an ongoing debate between Stephen Turner and Joseph Rouse (both contributors to this volume) on the role of naturalism in the philosophy of the social sciences. Informed by recent developments in both philosophy and the social sciences, this volume will set the benchmark for contemporary discussions about normativity and naturalism. This collection will be relevant to philosophers of social science, philosophers in interested in the rule following and metaphysics of normativity, and theoretically oriented social scientists.

Naturalism and Normativity

Naturalism and Normativity PDF Author: Mario De Caro
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231508875
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
Normativity concerns what we ought to think or do and the evaluations we make. For example, we say that we ought to think consistently, we ought to keep our promises, or that Mozart is a better composer than Salieri. Yet what philosophical moral can we draw from the apparent absence of normativity in the scientific image of the world? For scientific naturalists, the moral is that the normative must be reduced to the nonnormative, while for nonnaturalists, the moral is that there must be a transcendent realm of norms. Naturalism and Normativity engages with both sides of this debate. Essays explore philosophical options for understanding normativity in the space between scientific naturalism and Platonic supernaturalism. They articulate a liberal conception of philosophy that is neither reducible to the sciences nor completely independent of them yet one that maintains the right to call itself naturalism. Contributors think in new ways about the relations among the scientific worldview, our experience of norms and values, and our movements in the space of reason. Detailed discussions include the relationship between philosophy and science, physicalism and ontological pluralism, the realm of the ordinary, objectivity and subjectivity, truth and justification, and the liberal naturalisms of Donald Davidson, John Dewey, John McDowell, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Nietzsche, Naturalism, and Normativity

Nietzsche, Naturalism, and Normativity PDF Author: Christopher Janaway
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199583676
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
This volume comprises ten original essays on Nietzsche, one of the western canon's most controversial ethical thinkers. An international team of experts clarify Nietzsche's own views, both critical and positive, ethical and meta-ethical, and connect his philosophical concerns to contemporary debates in and about ethics, normativity, and value.

Naturalism in Question

Naturalism in Question PDF Author: Mario De Caro
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674012950
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
Today most philosophers in the English-speaking world adhere to “naturalist” credos that philosophy is continuous with science, and that the natural sciences provide a complete account of all that exists. This volume presents a group of leading thinkers who criticize scientific naturalism in order to defend a more inclusive or liberal naturalism.

Wilfrid Sellars

Wilfrid Sellars PDF Author: James O'Shea
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745630022
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
The work of the American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars continues to have a significant impact on the contemporary philosophical scene. His writings have influenced major thinkers such as Rorty, McDowell, Brandom, and Dennett, and many of Sellars basic conceptions, such as the logical space of reasons, the myth of the given, and the manifest and scientific images, have become standard philosophical terms. Often, however, recent uses of these terms do not reflect the richness or the true sense of Sellars original ideas. This book gets to the heart of Sellars philosophy and provides students with a comprehensive critical introduction to his lifes work. The book is structured around what Sellars himself regarded as the philosophers overarching task: to achieve a coherent vision of reality that will finally overcome the continuing clashes between the world as common sense takes it to be and the world as science reveals it to be. It provides a clear analysis of Sellars groundbreaking philosophy of mind, his novel theory of consciousness, his defense of scientific realism, and his thoroughgoing naturalism with a normative turn. Providing a lively examination of Sellars work through the central problem of what it means to be a human being in a scientific world, this book will be a valuable resource for all students of philosophy.

The Normative and the Natural

The Normative and the Natural PDF Author: Michael P. Wolf
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319336878
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
Drawing on a rich pragmatist tradition, this book offers an account of the different kinds of ‘oughts’, or varieties of normativity, that we are subject to contends that there is no conflict between normativity and the world as science describes it. The authors argue that normative claims aim to evaluate, to urge us to do or not do something, and to tell us how a state of affairs ought to be. These claims articulate forms of action-guidance that are different in kind from descriptive claims, with a wholly distinct practical and expressive character. This account suggests that there are no normative facts, and so nothing that needs any troublesome shoehorning into a scientific account of the world. This work explains that nevertheless, normative claims are constrained by the world, and answerable to reason and argumentation, in a way that makes them truth-apt and objective.

Explaining the Normative

Explaining the Normative PDF Author: Stephen P. Turner
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745642551
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
"Explaining the Normative is the first systematic, historically grounded critique of normativism. It identifies the standard normativist pattern of argument, and shows how this pattern depends on circularities, preferred descriptions, problematic transcendental arguments, and regress arguments ending in mysteries."--Jacket.

The Nature of Normativity

The Nature of Normativity PDF Author: Ralph Wedgwood
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191530697
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The Nature of Normativity presents a complete theory about the nature of normative thought — that is, the sort of thought that is concerned with what ought to be the case, or what we ought to do or think. Ralph Wedgwood defends a kind of realism about the normative, according to which normative truths or facts are genuinely part of reality. Anti-realists often complain that realism gives rise to demands for explanation that it cannot adequately meet. What is the nature of these normative facts? How we could ever know them or even refer to them in language or thought? Wedgwood accepts that any adequate version of realism must answer these explanatory demands. However, he seeks to show that these demands can be met - in large part by relying on a version of the idea, which has been much discussed in recent work in the philosophy of mind, that the intentional is normative - that is, that there is no way of explaining the nature of the various sorts of mental states that have intentional or representational content (such as beliefs, judgments, desires, decisions, and so on), without stating normative facts. On the basis of this idea, Wedgwood provides a detailed systematic theory that deals with the following three areas: the meaning of statements about what ought to be; the nature of the facts stated by these statements; and what justifies us in holding beliefs about what ought to be.

How Scientific Practices Matter

How Scientific Practices Matter PDF Author: Joseph Rouse
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226730080
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
How can we understand the world as a whole instead of separate natural and human realms? Joseph T. Rouse proposes an approach to this classic problem based on radical new conceptions of both philosophical naturalism and scientific practice. Rouse begins with a detailed critique of modern thought on naturalism, from Neurath and Heidegger to Charles Taylor, Thomas Kuhn, and W. V. O. Quine. He identifies two constraints central to a philosophically robust naturalism: it must impose no arbitrarily philosophical restrictions on science, and it must shun even the most subtle appeals to mysterious or supernatural forces. Thus a naturalistic approach requires philosophers to show that their preferred conception of nature is what scientific inquiry discloses, and that their conception of scientific understanding is itself intelligible as part of the natural world. Finally, Rouse draws on feminist science studies and other recent work on causality and discourse to demonstrate the crucial role that closer attention to scientific practice can play in reclaiming naturalism. A bold and ambitious book, How Scientific Practices Matter seeks to provide a viable—yet nontraditional—defense of a naturalistic conception of philosophy and science. Its daring proposals will spark much discussion and debate among philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science.

Understanding People

Understanding People PDF Author: Alan Millar
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191531189
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Alan Millar examines our understanding of why people think and act as they do. His key theme is that normative considerations form an indispensable part of the explanatory framework in terms of which we seek to understand each other. Millar defends a conception according to which normativity is linked to reasons. On this basis he examines the structure of certain normative commitments incurred by having propositional attitudes. Controversially, he argues that ascriptions of beliefs and intentions in and of themselves attribute normative commitments and that this has implications for the psychology of believing and intending. Indeed, all propositional attitudes of the sort we ascribe to people have a normative dimension, since possessing the concepts that the attitudes implicate is of its very nature commitment-incurring. The ramifications of these views for our understanding of people is explored. Millar offers illuminating discussions of reasons for belief and reasons for action; the explanation of beliefs and actions in terms of the subject's reasons; the idea that simulation has a key role in understanding people; and the limits of explanation in terms of propositional attitudes. He compares and contrasts the commitments incurred by propositional attitudes with those incurred by participating in practices, arguing that the former should not be assimilated to the latter. Understanding People will be of great interest to most philosophers of mind, as well as to those working on practical and theoretical reasoning.