Explaining our Knowledge of Normative Supervenience

2021 ◽  
pp. 233-256
Author(s):  
Vilma Venesmaa
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Truth

It is commonly assumed that if normative terms are analyzable in descriptive terms, as claimed by analytic reductionists, this provides an easy explanation why normative supervenience would be a conceptual truth. This chapter argues that our knowledge of normative supervenience has two important features this explanation fails to account for: first, the idea that normative properties supervene on descriptive properties seems obvious to us and, secondly, we don’t come to accept this thesis distributively by finding it plausible in each of its particular instances but rather by seeing a pattern that all normative properties must conform to. An alternative is suggested, an expressivist account of normative supervenience that allows us to explain both of these features. The chapter closes by arguing that they require explanation even on the assumption that normative supervenience is not a conceptual truth. This makes the explanation problem concerning our knowledge of normative supervenience more general than previously thought.

Relationships Between Law and Morality

2019 ◽  
pp. 5-28
Author(s):  
Kenneth Einar Himma
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Conceptual Truth ◽  
Legal Validity ◽  
Law And Morality

This chapter distinguishes three types of inquiry about law. It articulates the two conceptual views about morality and the nature of law that comprise the focus of this volume. First, the chapter explains positivist and anti-positivist views with respect to whether it is a conceptual truth that the criteria of legal validity include moral constraints on the content of law. It then turns to the dispute between inclusive and exclusive positivists with respect to whether it is conceptually possible for a legal system to have content-based moral criteria of validity. Finally, this chapter argues that the claim that conceptual jurisprudence should not be done is either unclear or false.

scholarly journals Debunking, supervenience, and Hume’s Principle

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (8) ◽  
pp. 1083-1103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Leng
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Realism ◽  
Mathematical Beliefs ◽  
Conceptual Truth ◽  
Hume’S Principle ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
Moral Facts

AbstractDebunking arguments against both moral and mathematical realism have been pressed, based on the claim that our moral and mathematical beliefs are insensitive to the moral/mathematical facts. In the mathematical case, I argue that the role of Hume’s Principle as a conceptual truth speaks against the debunkers’ claim that it is intelligible to imagine the facts about numbers being otherwise while our evolved responses remain the same. Analogously, I argue, the conceptual supervenience of the moral on the natural speaks presents a difficulty for the debunker’s claim that, had the moral facts been otherwise, our evolved moral beliefs would have remained the same.

Conceptual Truth, Necessity, and Negation

The Monist ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 103 (4) ◽  
pp. 468-480
Author(s):  
Jean-Philippe Narboux
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Hilary Putnam ◽  
Conceptual Scheme ◽  
Semantic Externalism ◽  
Conceptual Truth ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Traditional Notion ◽  
Historical Phenomenon

Abstract Throughout his philosophical career, Hilary Putnam was preoccupied with the question of what survives of the traditional notion of a priori truth in light of the recurring historical phenomenon, made prominent by the scientific revolutions of the early decades of the twentieth century, through which “something that was literally inconceivable has turned out to be true” (1962b). Impugning the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, Putnam’s redefinition of “conceptual truth” in terms of “quasi-necessity relative to a conceptual scheme” is meant to accommodate the possibility of transitions of just this sort. In this essay, I trace the origins and development of Putnam’s account of “quasi-necessity.” I try to defend it against some objections naturally arising in connection with the interplay of modality and negation. My main contention is that the main tenets of Putnam’s semantic externalism inform his reconception of conceptual truth, and that they must be recognized to hold of such basic logical notions as those of judgment and negation.

Bolzano on conceptual and intuitive truth: the point and purpose of the distinction

2013 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Textor
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Truth ◽  
Object A ◽  
Simple Idea ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Philosophical Importance

Bolzano incorporated Kant's distinction between intuitions and concepts into the doctrine of propositions by distinguishing between conceptual (Begriffssätze an sich) and intuitive propositions (Anschauungssätze an sich). An intuitive proposition contains at least one objective intuition, that is, a simple idea that represents exactly one object; a conceptual proposition contains no objective intuition. After Bolzano, philosophers dispensed with the distinction between conceptual and intuitive propositions. So why did Bolzano attach philosophical importance to it? I will argue that, ultimately, the value of the distinction lies in the fact that conceptual and intuitive truths have different objective grounds: if a conceptual truth is grounded at all, its ground is a conceptual truth. The difference in grounds between conceptual and intuitive truths motivates Bolzano's criticism of Kant's view that intuition plays the fundamental role in mathematics, a conceptual science by Bolzano's lights.

Conceptual Truth and Aesthetic Truth

1990 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Dorter
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Truth
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