When I say that my cat's name is Vito, I make a factual statement. It describes a state of affairs with seemingly no value judgments involved. The fact that my cat has this name is just that - a value-free fact - and says nothing (cannot say) about what my cat's (or any other cat's) … Continue reading Are There Value-Free Facts?
Habits and Norms
What makes some actions and ways of moving appear 'normal' to us while others 'strange'? According to Sara Ahmed, at the heart of the matter is repetition. When repeated regularly by enough people, that way of being gradually becomes the 'norm'. We say then - that is just how things are. It is a given. … Continue reading Habits and Norms
Tension in Enlightenment Project
One of the more striking incoherences characteristic of the Enlightenment is the struggle to establish a naturalistic foundation for morality and ethics. Given the success of the natural sciences and overall confidence in the human cognitive capacities to understand and explain nature in a purely mechanistic way, the hopes of Enlightenment thinkers must have been … Continue reading Tension in Enlightenment Project
How beliefs are different from actions?
In our daily lives, it is common for us to think and talk about actions in normative terms. I should do this, I'd better not do that, for different reasons, depending on the situation. Actions are amenable to such regulating, normative attitudes because we can choose how to act, we have control over our actions. In other words, our … Continue reading How beliefs are different from actions?
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