Nature and Normativity
eBook - ePub

Nature and Normativity

Biology, Teleology, and Meaning

  1. 238 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Nature and Normativity

Biology, Teleology, and Meaning

About this book

Nature and Normativity argues that the problem of the place of norms in nature has been essentially misunderstood when it has been articulated in terms of the relation of human language and thought, on the one hand, and the world described by physics on the other. Rather, if we concentrate on the facts that speaking and thinking are activities of organic agents, then the problem of the place of the normative in nature becomes refocused on three related questions. First, is there a sense in which biological processes and the behavior of organisms can be legitimately subject to normative evaluation? Second, is there some sense in which, in addition to having ordinary causal explanations, organic phenomena can also legitimately be seen to happen because they should happen in that way, in some naturalistically comprehensible sense of 'should', or that organic phenomena happen in order to achieve some result, because that result should occur? And third, is it possible to naturalistically understand how human thought and language can be legitimately seen as the normatively evaluable behavior of a particular species of organism, behavior that occurs in order to satisfy some class of norms? This book develops, articulates, and defends positive answers to each of these questions.

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Yes, you can access Nature and Normativity by Mark Okrent in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Philosophy & Mind & Body in Philosophy. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. 1 Norms and the Response to Norms
  8. 2 Life and Teleology
  9. 3 Building an Instrumentally Rational Agent
  10. 4 Social Animals and Non-Instrumental Norms
  11. 5 Human Practices and Responsiveness to Two-Dimensional Practical Norms
  12. 6 Language as a Tool
  13. 7 Language, Warranted Assertibility, and Truth
  14. Bibliography
  15. Index