Normativity and naturalism in the philosophy of social sciences

0458578 - FLÚ 2017 RIV US eng M - Monography Chapter
Peregrin, Jaroslav
Social Normativism.
Normativity and naturalism in the philosophy of social sciences. New York: Routledge, 2016 - (Risjord, M.), s. 60-77. Routledge studies in contemporary philosophy, 77. ISBN 978-1-138-93662-1
R&D Projects: GA ČR GA13-20785S
Institutional support: RVO:67985955
Keywords : norms * normativity * social rules * naturalism
Subject RIV: AA - Philosophy ; Religion

Normativity is one of the keywords of contemporary philosophical discussions Are the philosophers who argue for the irreducible role of normativity within accounts for human societies obliged to assume, as Stephen Turner has recently put it, the existence of a 'non-natural, non-empirical stuff that is claimed to be necessarily, intrinsically there and to in some sense account for the actual'? In this paper I argue that though paying due attention to the normative dimension of human societies is indeed indispensable for an adequate account of us humans as social beings, there is a way of grasping this dimension free of trafficking in any esoteric stuff. The peculiar status of this dimension stems from the fact that we simply cannot approach all rules and norms of our society 'from without': we are unable to extricate ourselves from the web of rules that constitutes the social space which by now forms our native niche. This does not mean that norms constitute a layer of reality elusive of scientific understanding; it does mean, however, that scientific understanding may need to involve – or be complemented by – an understanding of our societies’ normative scaffolds as seen from within.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0258864