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168-639: In his works, Lavelle dealt with themes such as axiology , aesthetics , the problem of evil , morality , and freedom of the spirit. Lavelle was a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques . Louis Lavelle was born in France in 1883 and died there in 1951. He was Professor at the College de France, at the Sorbonne, and lectured at German, Italian, Swiss, Belgian and Dutch universities. In 1947 he

336-410: A clarinetist . The terms incomparability and incommensurability are often used as synonyms. However, philosophers like Ruth Chang distinguish them. According to this view, incommensurability means that there is no common measure to quantify values of different types. Incommensurable values may or may not be comparable. If they are, it is possible to say that one value is better than another, but it

504-659: A formal science , akin to logic and mathematics . It uses axioms to give an abstract definition of value, understanding it not as a property of things but as a property of concepts. Values measure the extent to which an entity fulfills its concept. For example, a good car has all the desirable qualities of cars, like a reliable engine and effective brakes, whereas a bad car lacks many. Formal axiology distinguishes between three fundamental value types: intrinsic values apply to people; extrinsic values apply to things, actions, and social roles; systemic values apply to conceptual constructs. Formal axiology examines how these value types form

672-527: A thought experiment that imagines the valuable thing in isolation from everything else. In such a situation, purely instrumentally valuable things lose their value since they serve no purpose while purely intrinsically valuable things remain valuable. According to a common view, pleasure is one of the sources of intrinsic value. Other suggested sources include desire satisfaction, virtue , life , health , beauty , freedom , and knowledge . Intrinsic and instrumental value are not exclusive categories. As

840-451: A truth value , a position known as non-cognitivism . For example, emotivists say that value claims express emotional attitudes, similar to how exclamations like "Yay!" or "Boo!" express emotions rather than stating facts. Cognitivists contend that value statements have a truth value. Error theorists defend anti-realism based on this view by stating that all value statements are false because there are no values. Another view accepts

1008-485: A broader horizon of values, including those beyond anyone's control. Some perspectives contrast ethics and value theory, asserting that the normative concepts examined by ethics are distinct from the evaluative concepts examined by value theory. Axiological ethics is a subfield of ethics examining the nature and role of values from a moral perspective, with particular interest in determining which ends are worth pursuing. The ethical theory of consequentialism combines

1176-419: A coherent perspective. But as a method to guide philosophizing, this is usually too vague to provide specific guidance. When understood in a more narrow sense, the method aims at finding an equilibrium between particular intuitions and general principles. On this view, the thinker starts with intuitions about particular cases and formulates general principles that roughly reflect these intuitions. The next step

1344-407: A commodity provides—and exchange value —the proportion at which one commodity can be exchanged with another. It focuses on exchange value, which it says is determined by the amount of labor required to produce the commodity . In its simplest form, it directly correlates exchange value to labor time. For example, if the time needed to hunt a deer is twice the time needed to hunt a beaver then one deer

1512-419: A conceivable practical kind the object may involve – what sensations we are to expect from it and what reactions we must prepare". Various criticisms to the pragmatic method have been raised. For example, it is commonly rejected that the terms "true" and "useful" mean the same thing. A closely related problem is that believing in a certain theory may be useful to one person and useless to another, which would mean

1680-475: A desire can only provide value if a fully informed and rational person would have it. This view excludes faulty desires. Perfectionism identifies the realization of human nature and the cultivation of characteristic human abilities as the source of intrinsic goodness. It covers capacities and character traits belonging to the bodily, emotional, volitional, cognitive, social, artistic, and religious fields. Perfectionists disagree about which human excellences are

1848-426: A forgotten philosopher, ongoing scholarship on his work continues into 2021. Lavelle's other writings include La dialectique du monde sensible: La perception visuelle de la profondeur (1921), La conscience de soi (1933), La présence totale (1934), L'Erreur de Narcisse (1939), Le Mal et la Souffrance (1940), La Parole et l'Écriture (1947), and Les puissances du Moi (1948). Axiology Value theory

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2016-473: A fundamental aspect of reality and how they affect phenomena such as emotion , desire , decision, and action . Its topic is relevant to many human endeavors because values are guiding principles that underlie the political, economic, scientific, and personal spheres. Value theory analyzes and evaluates phenomena such as well-being , utility , beauty , human life, knowledge , wisdom , freedom , love , and justice . The precise definition of value theory

2184-633: A hierarchy and how they can be measured. Value theorists employ various methods to conduct their inquiry, justify theories, and measure values. Intuitionists rely on intuitions to assess evaluative claims. In this context, an intuition is an immediate apprehension or understanding of a self-evident claim, meaning that its truth can be assessed without inferring it from another observation. Value theorists often rely on thought experiments to gain this type of understanding. Thought experiments are imagined scenarios that exemplify philosophical problems. Philosophers use counterfactual reasoning to evaluate

2352-422: A hierarchy of values reflecting the relative importance and weight of different value types to help people promote higher values when faced with difficult choices. For example, philosopher Max Scheler ranks values based on how enduring and fulfilling they are into the levels of pleasure, utility, vitality, culture, and holiness. He asserts that people should not promote lower values, like pleasure, if this comes at

2520-435: A lot while others benefit little, even if the two outcomes have the same sum total. Axiological prioritarians are particularly concerned with the benefits of individuals who are worse off. They say that providing advantages to people in need has more value than providing the same advantages to others. Formal axiology is a theory of value initially developed by philosopher Robert S. Hartman . This approach treats axiology as

2688-552: A multidisciplinary area of inquiry that covers research from fields like sociology , anthropology , psychology , and economics in addition to philosophy . In a narrow sense, value theory is a subdiscipline of ethics that is particularly relevant to the school of consequentialism since it determines how to assess the value of consequences. The word axiology has its origin in the ancient Greek terms ἄξιος (axios, meaning ' worth ' or ' value ' ) and λόγος (logos, meaning ' study ' or ' theory of ' ). Even though

2856-435: A person is responsible for or guilty of. For example, if Mei promises to pick Pedro up from the airport then an agent-relative value obligates Mei to drive to the airport. This obligation is in place even if it does not benefit Mei, in which case there is an agent-relative value without a personal value. In consequentialism , agent-relative values are often discussed in relation to ethical dilemmas . One dilemma revolves around

3024-415: A positive or negative value even if they are not right or wrong in a strict sense. Despite the distinction, evaluative and normative concepts are closely related. For example, the value of the consequences of an action may affect whether this action is right or wrong. Value theorists distinguish various types or categories of values. The different classifications overlap and are based on considerations like

3192-403: A predicate to talk about the unqualified value of pleasure. Attributive and predicative goodness can accompany each other, but this is not always the case. For instance, being a good thief is not necessarily a good thing. Another type of relative value restricts goodness to a specific person. Known as personal value , it expresses what benefits a particular person, promotes their welfare , or

3360-427: A prominent dispute between naturalists and non-naturalists hinges on the conceptual analysis of the term good , in particular, whether its meaning can be analyzed through natural terms, like pleasure . In the social sciences , value theorists face the challenge of measuring the evaluative outlook of individuals and groups. Specifically, they aim to determine personal value hierarchies, for example, whether

3528-418: A reaction to other methods, for example, to counter skepticism by providing a secure path to knowledge. In other cases, one method may be understood as a development or a specific application of another method. Some philosophers or philosophical movements give primacy to one specific method, while others use a variety of methods depending on the problem they are trying to solve. It has been argued that many of

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3696-473: A result, a thing can have both intrinsic and instrumental value if it is both good in itself while also leading to other good things. In a similar sense, a thing can have different instrumental values at the same time, both positive and negative ones. This is the case if some of its consequences are good while others are bad. The total instrumental value of a thing is the value balance of all its consequences. Because instrumental value depends on other values, it

3864-420: A sentient being for fun is wrong" or "it is irrational to believe both something and its opposite". But not all defenders of intuitionism restrict intuitions to self-evident propositions. Instead, often weaker non-inferential impressions are also included as intuitions, such as a mother's intuition that her child is innocent of a certain crime. Intuitions can be used in various ways as a philosophical method. On

4032-468: A small set of self-evident axioms together with relevant definitions and tries to deduce a great variety of theorems from this basis, thereby mirroring the methods found in geometry . Historically, it can be understood as a response to methodological skepticism: it consists in trying to find a foundation of certain knowledge and then expanding this foundation through deductive inferences . The theorems arrived at this way may be challenged in two ways. On

4200-486: A stable equilibrium . In this sense, it is the endpoint of the deliberative process on the issue in question. The philosophical method of reflective equilibrium aims at reaching this type of state by mentally going back and forth between all relevant beliefs and intuitions. In this process, the thinker may have to let go of some beliefs or deemphasize certain intuitions that do not fit into the overall picture in order to progress. In this wide sense, reflective equilibrium

4368-577: A subject gives more weight to truth than to moral goodness or beauty. They distinguish between direct and indirect measurement methods. Direct methods involve asking people straightforward questions about what things they value and which value priorities they have. This approach assumes that people are aware of their evaluative outlook and able to articulate it accurately. Indirect methods do not share this assumption, asserting instead that values guide behavior and choices on an unconscious level. Consequently, they observe how people decide and act, seeking to infer

4536-473: A way that they have to believe in certain false assumptions. Experimental philosophy is the most recent development of the methods discussed in this article: it began only in the early years of the 21st century. Experimental philosophers try to answer philosophical questions by gathering empirical data. It is an interdisciplinary approach that applies the methods of psychology and the cognitive sciences to topics studied by philosophy. This usually takes

4704-402: A widely accepted main classification. Some focus on the types of entities that have value. They include distinct categories for entities like things, the environment, individuals, groups, and society. Another subdivision pays attention to the type of benefit involved and encompasses material, economic, moral, social, political, aesthetic, and religious values. Classifications by the beneficiary of

4872-557: Is a closely related field focusing primarily on normative concepts about which behavior is right, whereas value theory explores evaluative concepts about what is good. In economics, theories of value are frameworks to assess and explain the economic value of commodities . Sociology and anthropology examine values as aspects of societies and cultures, reflecting their dominant preferences and beliefs. Psychologists tend to understand values as abstract motivational goals that shape an individual's personality . The roots of value theory lie in

5040-472: Is a form of cooperative philosophizing in which one philosopher usually first states a claim, which is then scrutinized by their interlocutor by asking them questions about various related claims, often with the implicit goal of putting the initial claim into doubt. It continues to be a popular method for teaching philosophy. Plato and Aristotle emphasize the role of wonder in the practice of philosophy. On this view, "philosophy begins in wonder " and "[i]t

5208-427: Is a property of desire satisfaction itself, while others say that it is a property of the objects that satisfy a desire. One debate in desire theory concerns whether any desire is a source of value. For example, if a person has a false belief that money makes them happy, it is questionable whether the satisfaction of their desire for money is a source of value. To address this consideration, some desire theorists say that

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5376-563: Is a property of the fact that Bill is pleased. This distinction affects various disputes in value theory. In some cases, a value is intrinsic according to one view and extrinsic according to the other. Value realism contrasts with anti-realism , which comes in various forms. In its strongest version, anti-realism rejects the existence of values in any form, claiming that value statements are meaningless. Between these two positions, there are various intermediary views. Some anti-realists accept that value claims have meaning but deny that they have

5544-502: Is a reliable source of knowledge . Another problem is that for many issues, there is no one universally accepted common-sense opinion. In such cases, common sense only amounts to the majority opinion, which should not be blindly accepted by researchers. This problem can be approached by articulating a weaker version of the common-sense method. One such version is defended by Roderick Chisholm , who allows that theories violating common sense may still be true. He contends that, in such cases,

5712-418: Is a reliable source of knowledge just like perception , with the difference being that it happens without the sensory organs . Others compare it not to perception but to the cognitive ability to evaluate counterfactual conditionals, which may be understood as the capacity to answer what-if questions. But the reliability of intuitions has been contested by its opponents. For example, wishful thinking may be

5880-431: Is a state in which a thinker has the impression that they have considered all the relevant evidence for and against a theory and have made up their mind on this issue. It is a state of coherent balance among one's beliefs. This does not imply that all the evidence has really been considered, but it is tied to the impression that engaging in further inquiry is unlikely to make one change one's mind, i.e. that one has reached

6048-447: Is about whether the entity carrying the value is a concrete individual or a state of affairs . For instance, the name "Bill" refers to an individual while the sentence "Bill is pleased" refers to a state of affairs. States of affairs are complex entities that combine other entities, like the individual "Bill" and the property "is pleased". Some value theorists hold that the value is a property directly of Bill while others contend that it

6216-407: Is achieved through the so-called phenomenological reduction , also known as epoché or bracketing: the researcher suspends their judgments about the natural external world in order to focus exclusively on the experience of how things appear to be, independent of whether these appearances are true or false. One idea behind this approach is that our presuppositions of what things are like can get in

6384-573: Is an essential part of philosophy. In several instances in the history of philosophy, the discovery of a new philosophical method, such as Cartesian doubt or the phenomenological method , has had important implications both on how philosophers conducted their theorizing and what claims they set out to defend. In some cases, such discoveries led the involved philosophers to overly optimistic outlooks, seeing them as historic breakthroughs that would dissolve all previous disagreements in philosophy. The methods of philosophy differ in various respects from

6552-599: Is an older and less common synonym. Value is the worth, usefulness, or merit of something. Many evaluative terms are employed to talk about value, including good , best , great , and excellent as well as their negative counterparts, like bad and terrible . Some value terms, like good and bad , are pure evaluations in that they only express the value of something without any additional descriptive content. They are known as thin evaluative concepts . Thick evaluative concepts , like courageous and cruel , provide more information by expressing other qualities besides

6720-483: Is an open question whether it should be understood as a value in a strict sense. For example, the overall value of a chain of causes leading to an intrinsically valuable thing remains the same if instrumentally valuable links are added or removed without affecting the intrinsically valuable thing. The observation that the overall value does not change is sometimes used as an argument that the things added or removed do not have value. Traditionally, value theorists have used

6888-410: Is an open question, unlike the question "Is what is good what is good?", which is a closed question. One problem with this approach is that it results in a very strict conception of what constitutes a correct conceptual analysis, leading to the conclusion that many concepts, like "goodness", are simple or indefinable. Willard Van Orman Quine criticized conceptual analysis as part of his criticism of

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7056-414: Is applicable to a specific situation to test their analyses. But other approaches have also been utilized by using not the intuitions of philosophers but of regular people, an approach often defended by experimental philosophers . G. E. Moore proposed that the correctness of a conceptual analysis can be tested using the open question method . According to this view, asking whether the decomposition fits

7224-496: Is called " transcendental argument ": it argues that these additional assumptions also have to be true because otherwise, the initial fact would not be the case. For example, it has been used to argue for the existence of an external world based on the premise that the experience of the temporal order of our mental states would not be possible otherwise. Another example argues in favor of a description of nature in terms of concepts such as motion, force, and causal interaction based on

7392-516: Is central for justifying basic principles and axioms. These principles can then be used as premises to support further conclusions. Some approaches to philosophical methodology emphasize that these arguments have to be deductively valid , i.e. that the truth of their premises ensures the truth of their conclusion. In other cases, philosophers may commit themselves to working hypotheses or norms of investigation even though they lack sufficient evidence. Such assumptions can be quite fruitful in simplifying

7560-468: Is connected to a form of coherentism about epistemological justification and is thereby opposed to foundationalist attempts at finding a small set of fixed and unrevisable beliefs from which to build one's philosophical theory. One problem with this wide conception of the reflective equilibrium is that it seems trivial: it is a truism that the rational thing to do is to consider all the evidence before making up one's mind and to strive towards building

7728-401: Is context-independent. Theories of value aggregation provide concrete principles for calculating the overall value of an outcome based on how positively or negatively each individual is affected by it. For example, if a government implements a new policy that affects some people positively and others negatively, theories of value aggregation can be used to determine whether the overall value of

7896-576: Is continuous with the natural sciences in that they both give priority to the scientific method for investigating all areas of reality. According to truthmaker theorists , every true proposition is true because another entity, its truthmaker, exists. This principle can be used as a methodology to critically evaluate philosophical theories. In particular, this concerns theories that accept certain truths but are unable to provide their truthmaker. Such theorists are derided as ontological cheaters . For example, this can be applied to philosophical presentism ,

8064-457: Is disputed and some theorists rely on alternative characterizations. In a broad sense, value theory is a catch-all label that encompasses all philosophical disciplines studying evaluative or normative topics. According to this view, value theory is one of the main branches of philosophy and includes ethics , aesthetics , social philosophy , political philosophy , and philosophy of religion . A similar broad characterization sees value theory as

8232-475: Is doubt: only that which is indubitable can serve this role. While this approach has been influential, it has also received various criticisms. One problem is that it has proven very difficult to find such absolutely certain claims if the doubt is applied in its most radical form. Another is that while absolute certainty may be desirable, it is by no means necessary for knowledge. In this sense, it excludes too much and seems to be unwarranted and arbitrary, since it

8400-697: Is good asserts that kindness possesses the property of goodness. Value realists disagree about what type of property is involved. Naturalists say that value is a natural property. Natural properties can be known through empirical observation and are studied by the natural sciences. This means that value is similar to other natural properties, like size and shape. Non-naturalists reject this view but agree that values are real. They say that values differ significantly from empirical properties and belong to another realm of reality. According to one view, they are known through rational or emotional intuition rather than empirical observation. Another disagreement among realists

8568-539: Is good in itself, independent of external factors. An entity has instrumental value if it is useful as a means leading to other good things. Some classifications focus on the type of benefit, including economic, moral, political, aesthetic, and religious values. Other categorizations, based on the meaning and function of evaluative terms, discuss attributive, predicative, personal, impersonal, and agent-relative values. Value realists state that values have mind-independent existence as objective features of reality. This view

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8736-402: Is in such cases just an antiquated theory that is eventually eliminated by the progress of science. For example, Albert Einstein 's theory of relativity constitutes a radical departure from the common-sense conception of space and time , and quantum physics poses equally serious problems to how we tend to think about how elementary particles behave. This puts into question that common sense

8904-405: Is in their interest. For example, a poem written by a child may have personal value for the parents even if the poem lacks value for others. Impersonal value, by contrast, is good in general without restriction to any specific person or viewpoint. Some philosophers, like G. E. Moore , reject the existence of personal values, holding that all values are impersonal. Others have proposed theories about

9072-610: Is interested in marginal utility , the additional satisfaction gained from consuming one more unit of the commodity. Marginal utility often diminishes if many units have already been consumed, leading to a decrease in the exchange value of commodities that are abundantly available. Both the labor theory and the marginal theory were later challenged by the Sraffian theory of value . Sociology studies social behavior, relationships, institutions, and society at large. In their analyses and explanations of these phenomena, some sociologists use

9240-434: Is known as an organic unity , a whole whose intrinsic value differs from the sum of the intrinsic values of its parts. Another perspective, called holism about value , asserts that the intrinsic value of a thing depends on its context. Holists can argue that happiness has positive intrinsic value in the context of virtue and negative intrinsic value in the context of vice. Atomists reject this view, saying that intrinsic value

9408-399: Is necessary for the experience of the temporal order of our mental states. But even if this point is granted, it does not guarantee that the assumption itself is true. So even if the belief in a given proposition is a psychological necessity for a certain experience, it does not automatically follow that this belief itself is true. Instead, it could be the case that humans are just wired in such

9576-404: Is not a deceiver". Another example is the causal axiom of Spinoza's system that "the knowledge of an effect depends on and involves knowledge of its cause", which has been criticized in various ways. In this sense, philosophical systems built using the geometrical method are open to criticisms that reject their basic axioms. A different form of objection holds that the inference from the axioms to

9744-400: Is not clear why very certain theorems justified by strong arguments should be abandoned just because they are not absolutely certain. This can be seen in relation to the insights discovered by the empirical sciences, which have proven very useful even though they are not indubitable. The geometrical method came to particular prominence through rationalists like Baruch Spinoza . It starts from

9912-405: Is not possible to quantify how much better it is. Several controversies surround the question of how the intrinsic value of a whole is determined by the intrinsic values of its parts. According to the additivity principle, the intrinsic value of a whole is simply the sum of the intrinsic values of its parts. For example, if a virtuous person becomes happy then the intrinsic value of the happiness

10080-452: Is often not clear how to distinguish ordinary from non-ordinary language. This makes it difficult in all but the paradigmatic cases to decide whether a philosophical claim is or is not supported by ordinary language. Methods based on intuition , like ethical intuitionism , use intuitions to evaluate whether a philosophical claim is true or false. In this context, intuitions are seen as a non-inferential source of knowledge : they consist in

10248-432: Is often understood in terms of evidence . In this sense, philosophical methodology is concerned with the questions of what constitutes philosophical evidence, how much support it offers, and how to acquire it. In contrast to the empirical sciences, it is often claimed that empirical evidence is not used in justifying philosophical theories, that philosophy is less about the empirical world and more about how we think about

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10416-426: Is perhaps best exemplified by its preoccupation with its own methods. This is also backed up by the arguments to the effect that one's philosophical method has important implications for how one does philosophy and which philosophical claims one accepts or rejects. Since philosophy also studies the methodology of other disciplines, such as the methods of science, it has been argued that the study of its own methodology

10584-405: Is rejected by anti-realists , some of whom argue that values are subjective human creations, whereas others claim that value statements are meaningless. Several sources of value have been proposed, such as hedonism , which says that only pleasure has intrinsic value, and desire theories, which identify desires as the ultimate source of value. Perfectionism , another prominent theory, emphasizes

10752-520: Is simply added to the intrinsic value of the virtue, thereby increasing the overall value. Various counterexamples to the additivity principle have been proposed, suggesting that the relation between parts and wholes is more complex. For example, Immanuel Kant argued that if a vicious person becomes happy, this happiness, though good in itself, does not increase the overall value. On the contrary, it makes things worse, according to Kant, since viciousness should not be rewarded with happiness. This situation

10920-431: Is sometimes expressed through the claim that "[the] meaning of a statement is the method of its verification". Meaningful sentences, like the ones found in the natural sciences, have clear conditions of empirical verification. But since most metaphysical sentences cannot be verified by empirical observations, they are deemed to be non-sensical by verificationists. Verificationism has been criticized on various grounds. On

11088-561: Is the assessment or measurement of value, often employed to compare the benefits of different options to find the most advantageous choice. Evaluative terms are sometimes distinguished from normative or deontic terms. Normative terms, like right , wrong , and obligation , prescribe actions or other states by expressing what ought to be done or what is required. Evaluative terms have a wider scope because they are not limited to what people can control or are responsible for. For example, involuntary events like digestion and earthquakes can have

11256-449: Is the more common sense, which applies to most of the methods listed in this article. In this sense, philosophical methodology is closely related to epistemology in that it consists in epistemological methods that enable philosophers to arrive at knowledge . Because of this, the problem of the methods of philosophy is central to how philosophical claims are to be justified . An important difference in philosophical methodology concerns

11424-411: Is the only source of value. This theory overlaps with hedonism because many people desire pleasure and because desire satisfaction is often accompanied by pleasure. Nonetheless, there are important differences: people desire a variety of other things as well, like knowledge, achievement, and respect; additionally, desire satisfaction may not always result in pleasure. Some desire theorists hold that value

11592-627: Is the systematic study of values . Also called axiology , it examines the nature, sources, and types of values. As a branch of philosophy , it has interdisciplinary applications in fields such as economics , sociology , anthropology , and psychology . Value is the worth of something, usually understood as a degree that covers both positive and negative magnitudes corresponding to the terms good and bad . Values influence many human endeavors related to emotion , decision-making , and action . Value theorists distinguish between intrinsic and instrumental value . An entity has intrinsic value if it

11760-430: Is the view that values have mind-independent existence. This means that objective facts determine what has value, irrespective of subjective beliefs and preferences. According to this view, the evaluative statement "That act is bad" is as objectively true or false as the empirical statement "That act causes distress". Realists often analyze values as properties of valuable things. For example, stating that kindness

11928-412: Is to deal with the conflicts between the two by adjusting both the intuitions and the principles to reconcile them until an equilibrium is reached. One problem with this narrow interpretation is that it depends very much on the intuitions one started with. This means that different philosophers may start with very different intuitions and may therefore be unable to find a shared equilibrium. For example,

12096-434: Is worth two beavers. The philosopher Karl Marx extended the labor theory of value in various ways. He introduced the concept of surplus value , which goes beyond the time and resources invested to explain how capitalists can profit from the labor of their employees. The marginal theory of value focuses on consumption rather than production. It says that the utility a commodity is the source of its value. Specifically, it

12264-505: The Chinese philosopher Zhang Dainian, says that the value of truth belongs to knowledge, the value of goodness belongs to behavior, and the value of beauty belongs to art. This three-fold distinction also plays a central role in the philosophies of Franz Brentano and Jürgen Habermas . Other suggested types of values include objective, subjective, potential, actual, contingent, necessary, inherent, and constitutive values. Value realism

12432-416: The analytic-synthetic distinction . This objection is based on the idea that all claims, including how concepts are to be decomposed, are ultimately based on empirical evidence . Another problem with conceptual analysis is that it is often very difficult to find an analysis of a concept that really covers all its cases. For this reason, Rudolf Carnap has suggested a modified version that aims to cover only

12600-434: The ancient period in the form of reflections on the highest good that humans should pursue. Value theory, also known as axiology and theory of values , is the systematic study of values . As the branch of philosophy examining which things are good and what it means for something to be good, it distinguishes different types of values and explores how they can be measured and compared. It also studies whether values are

12768-415: The expert intuitions found in trained philosophers. Some critics have even argued that experimental philosophy does not really form part of philosophy . This objection does not reject that the method of experimental philosophy has value, it just rejects that this method belongs to philosophical methodology. Various other philosophical methods have been proposed. The Socratic method or Socratic debate

12936-452: The intuitions used to defend certain claims vary a lot depending on factors such as culture , gender , or ethnicity . This variation casts doubt on the reliability of the intuitions and thereby also on theories supported by them. As a positive program, it uses empirical data to support its own philosophical claims. It differs from other philosophical methods in that it usually studies the intuitions of ordinary people and uses them, and not

13104-400: The necessary and sufficient conditions for whether the application of this concept is true. The resulting claim about the relation between the concept and its constituents is normally seen as knowable a priori since it is true only in virtue of the involved concepts and thereby constitutes an analytic truth . Usually, philosophers use their own intuitions to determine whether a concept

13272-475: The pragmatist method assesses theories by their practical consequences. The transcendental method studies the conditions without which an entity could not exist . Experimental philosophers use empirical methods. The choice of method can significantly impact how theories are constructed and the arguments used to support them. As a result, methodological disagreements can lead to philosophical disagreements. The term "philosophical methodology" refers either to

13440-461: The average English speaker. One problem for ordinary language philosophy is that regular speakers may have many different reasons for using a certain expression. Sometimes they intend to express what they believe, but other times they may be motivated by politeness or other conversational norms independent of the truth conditions of the expressed sentences. This significantly complicates ordinary language philosophy, since philosophers have to take

13608-653: The average person thinks about the issue in question. G. E. Moore , for example, rejects J. M. E. McTaggart 's sophisticated argumentation for the unreality of time based on his common-sense impression that time exists. He holds that his simple common-sense impression is much more certain than that McTaggart's arguments are sound, even though Moore was unable to pinpoint where McTaggart's arguments went wrong. According to his method, common sense constitutes an evidence base. This base may be used to eliminate philosophical theories that stray too far away from it, that are abstruse from its perspective. This can happen because either

13776-404: The certainty of its insights. A different objection to the method of phenomenological reduction holds that it involves an artificial stance that gives too much emphasis on the theoretical attitude at the expense of feeling and practical concerns. Another phenomenological method is called " eidetic variation ". It is used to study the essences of things. This is done by imagining an object of

13944-417: The challenge of how to select between them. Another difference between scientific and philosophical methodology is that there is wide agreement among scientists concerning their methods, testing procedures, and results. This is often linked to the fact that science has seen much more progress than philosophy. An important goal of philosophical methods is to assist philosophers in attaining knowledge. This

14112-420: The changed object is still a triangle, but it ceases to be a triangle if a fourth side is added. The method of verificationism consists in understanding sentences by analyzing their characteristic conditions of verification, i.e. by determining which empirical observations would prove them to be true. A central motivation behind this method has been to distinguish meaningful from meaningless sentences. This

14280-401: The claim that an objective account of nature would not be possible otherwise. Transcendental arguments have faced various challenges. On the one hand, the claim that the belief in a certain assumption is necessary for the experience of a certain entity is often not obvious. So in the example above, critics can argue against the transcendental argument by denying the claim that an external world

14448-476: The concept of values to understand issues like social cohesion and conflict , the norms and practices people follow, and collective action . They usually understand values as subjective attitudes possessed by individuals and shared in social groups. According to this view, values are beliefs or priorities about goals worth pursuing that guide people to act in certain ways. This subjective conception of values as aspects of individuals and social groups contrasts with

14616-415: The concept should result in a closed or pointless question. If it results in an open or intelligible question, then the analysis does not exactly correspond to what we have in mind when we use the term. This can be used, for example, to reject the utilitarian claim that " goodness " is "whatever maximizes happiness ". The underlying argument is that the question "Is what is good what maximizes happiness?"

14784-443: The concepts of gender and race . The method of common sense is based on the fact that we already have a great variety of beliefs that seem very certain to us, even if we do not believe them based on explicit arguments. Common sense philosophers use these beliefs as their starting point of philosophizing. This often takes the form of criticism directed against theories whose premises or conclusions are very far removed from how

14952-444: The concrete consequences associated, for example, with whether an abstract metaphysical theory is true or false. This is also intended to clarify the underlying issues by spelling out what would follow from them. Another goal of this approach is to expose pseudo-problems, which involve a merely verbal disagreement without any genuine difference on the level of the consequences between the competing standpoints. Succinct summaries of

15120-425: The contrast between absolute and relative value. Absolute value, also called value simpliciter , is a form of unconditional value. A thing has relative value if its value is limited to certain considerations or viewpoints. One form of relative value is restricted to the type of an entity, expressed in sentences like "That is a good knife" or "Jack is a good thief". This form is known as attributive goodness since

15288-425: The corresponding goal. The interest in philosophical methodology has risen a lot in contemporary philosophy . But some philosophers reject its importance by emphasizing that "preoccupation with questions about methods tends to distract us from prosecuting the methods themselves". However, such objections are often dismissed by pointing out that philosophy is at its core a reflective and critical enterprise, which

15456-620: The costs, negative consequences, or technological limitations. But other thought experiments even work with scenarios that defy what is physically possible. It is controversial to what extent thought experiments merit to be characterized as real experiments and whether the insights they provide are reliable. One problem with intuitions in general and thought experiments in particular consists in assessing their epistemological status, i.e. whether, how much, and in which circumstances they provide justification in comparison to other sources of knowledge . Some of its defenders claim that intuition

15624-480: The coverage he received in France, articles dedicated to him have come from Italian and Brazilian interpreters. From 1989 to 2019, thank to efforts by names like Alexis Klimov , Jean École , Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron , Michel Adam and Bruno Pinchard , the Louis Lavelle Association promoted annual conferences on the work of the author. While some 21st century commentators consider Lavelle

15792-411: The cultivation of characteristic human abilities. Value pluralism holds that there are diverse sources of intrinsic value, raising the issue of whether values belonging to different types are comparable. Value theorists employ various methods of inquiry , ranging from reliance on intuitions and thought experiments to the description of first-person experience and the analysis of language. Ethics

15960-894: The description of methods, philosophical methodology also compares and evaluates them. Philosophers have employed a great variety of methods. Methodological skepticism tries to find principles that cannot be doubted . The geometrical method deduces theorems from self-evident axioms . The phenomenological method describes first-person experience. Verificationists study the conditions of empirical verification of sentences to determine their meaning . Conceptual analysis decomposes concepts into fundamental constituents. Common-sense philosophers use widely held beliefs as their starting point of inquiry, whereas ordinary language philosophers extract philosophical insights from ordinary language. Intuition -based methods, like thought experiments , rely on non-inferential impressions. The method of reflective equilibrium seeks coherence among beliefs, while

16128-440: The distinction between descriptive and normative questions. Descriptive questions ask what methods philosophers actually use or used in the past, while normative questions ask what methods they should use . The normative aspect of philosophical methodology expresses the idea that there is a difference between good and bad philosophy. In this sense, philosophical methods either articulate the standards of evaluation themselves or

16296-468: The empirical sciences, many of their claims would be meaningless. But on a deeper level, the basic claim underlying verificationism seems itself to be meaningless by its own standards: it is not clear what empirical observations could verify the claim that the meaning of a sentence is the method of its verification. In this sense, verificationism would be contradictory by directly refuting itself. These and other problems have led some theorists, especially from

16464-447: The empirical world. In this sense, philosophy is often identified with conceptual analysis , which is concerned with explaining concepts and showing their interrelations. Philosophical naturalists often reject this line of thought and hold that empirical evidence can confirm or disconfirm philosophical theories, at least indirectly. Philosophical evidence, which may be obtained, for example, through intuitions or thought experiments ,

16632-418: The evaluation, such as character traits . Values are often understood as degrees that cover positive and negative magnitudes corresponding to good and bad. The term value is sometimes restricted to positive degrees to contrast with the term disvalue for the negative degrees. The terms better and worse are used to compare degrees, but it is controversial whether this is possible in all cases. Evaluation

16800-524: The existence of values but denies that they are mind-independent. According to this view, the mental states of individuals determine whether an object has value, for instance, because individuals desire it. A similar view is defended by existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre , who argued that values are human creations that endow the world with meaning. Subjectivist theories say that values are relative to each subject, whereas more objectivist outlooks hold that values depend on mind in general rather than on

16968-434: The expense of higher values. Radical pluralists reject this approach, putting more emphasis on diversity by holding that different types of values are not comparable with each other. This means that each value type is unique, making it impossible to determine which one is superior. Some value theorists use radical pluralism to argue that value conflicts are inevitable, that the gain of one value cannot always compensate for

17136-424: The experts' intuitions, as philosophical evidence. One problem for both the positive and the negative approaches is that the data obtained from surveys do not constitute hard empirical evidence since they do not directly express the intuitions of the participants. The participants may react to subtle pragmatic cues in giving their answers, which brings with it the need for further interpretation in order to get from

17304-517: The form of surveys probing the intuitions of ordinary people and then drawing conclusions from the findings. For example, one such inquiry came to the conclusion that justified true belief may be sufficient for knowledge despite various Gettier cases claiming to show otherwise. The method of experimental philosophy can be used both in a negative or a positive program. As a negative program, it aims to challenge traditional philosophical movements and positions. This can be done, for example, by showing how

17472-471: The given answers to the intuitions responsible for these answers. Another problem concerns the question of how reliable the intuitions of ordinary people on the often very technical issues are. The core of this objection is that, for many topics, the opinions of ordinary people are not very reliable since they have little familiarity with the issues themselves and the underlying problems they may pose. For this reason, it has been argued that they cannot replace

17640-446: The imagined scenario. These consequences are assessed using intuition and counterfactual thinking . For this reason, thought experiments are sometimes referred to as intuition pumps : they activate the intuitions concerning the specific situation, which may then be generalized to arrive at universal principles. In some cases, the imagined scenario is physically possible but it would not be feasible to make an actual experiment due to

17808-404: The impression of correctness one has when considering a certain claim. They are intellectual seemings that make it appear to the thinker that the considered proposition is true or false without the need to consider arguments for or against the proposition. This is sometimes expressed by saying that the proposition in question is self-evident . Examples of such propositions include "torturing

17976-479: The individual mind. A different position accepts that values are mind-independent but holds that they are reducible to other facts, meaning that they are not a fundamental part of reality. One form of reductionism maintains that a thing is good if it is fitting to favor this thing, regardless of whether people actually favor it. The strongest form of realism says that value is a fundamental part of reality and cannot be reduced to other aspects. Various theories about

18144-409: The individual. Traditionally, most value theorists see absolute value as the main topic of value theory and focus their attention on this type. Nonetheless, some philosophers, like Peter Geach and Philippa Foot , have argued that the concept of absolute value by itself is meaningless and should be understood as one form of relative value. Other classifications of values have been proposed without

18312-457: The kind under investigation. The features of this object are then varied in order to see whether the resulting object still belongs to the investigated kind. If the object can survive the change of a certain feature then this feature is inessential to this kind. Otherwise, it belongs to the kind's essence . For example, when imagining a triangle, one can vary its features, like the length of its sides or its color. These features are inessential since

18480-474: The known to the unknown. Various methods for the selection between competing theories have been proposed. They often focus on the theoretical virtues of the involved theories. One such method is based on the idea that, everything else being equal, the simpler theory is to be preferred. Another gives preference to the theory that provides the best explanation . According to the method of epistemic conservatism , we should, all other things being equal, prefer

18648-399: The loss of another, and that some ethical dilemmas are irresolvable. For example, philosopher Isaiah Berlin applied this idea to the values of liberty and equality , arguing that a gain in one cannot make up for a loss in the other. Similarly, philosopher Joseph Raz said that it is often impossible to compare the values of career paths, like when choosing between becoming a lawyer or

18816-470: The methodological difference between philosophy and science is that philosophical claims are usually more speculative and cannot be verified or falsified by looking through a telescope. This problem is not solved by citing works published by other philosophers, since it only defers the question of how their insights are justified. An additional complication concerning testimony is that different philosophers often defend mutually incompatible claims, which poses

18984-583: The methods found in the natural sciences . One important difference is that philosophy does not use experimental data obtained through measuring equipment like telescopes or cloud chambers to justify its claims. For example, even philosophical naturalists emphasizing the close relation between philosophy and the sciences mostly practice a form of armchair theorizing instead of gathering empirical data. Experimental philosophers are an important exception: they use methods found in social psychology and other empirical sciences to test their claims. One reason for

19152-412: The methods used to philosophize or to the branch of metaphilosophy studying these methods. A method is a way of doing things, such as a set of actions or decisions , in order to achieve a certain goal, when used under the right conditions. In the context of inquiry, a method is a way of conducting one's research and theorizing, like inductive or axiomatic methods in logic or experimental methods in

19320-429: The money people are willing to pay for it. Economic theories of value are frameworks to explain how economic value arises and which factors influence it. Prominent frameworks include the classical labor theory of value and the neo-classical marginal theory of value . The labor theory, initially developed by the economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo , distinguishes between use value —the utility or satisfaction

19488-530: The most important. Many are pluralistic in recognizing a diverse array of human excellences, such as knowledge, creativity, health, beauty, free agency, and moral virtues like benevolence and courage. According to one suggestion, there are two main fields of human goods: theoretical abilities responsible for understanding the world and practical abilities responsible for interacting with it. Some perfectionists provide an ideal characterization of human nature, holding that human excellences are those aspects that promote

19656-491: The most paradigmatic cases while excluding problematic or controversial cases. While this approach has become more popular in recent years, it has also been criticized based on the argument that it tends to change the subject rather than resolve the original problem. In this sense, it is closely related to the method of conceptual engineering , which consists in redefining concepts in fruitful ways or developing new interesting concepts. This method has been applied, for example, to

19824-425: The narrow method of reflective equilibrium may lead some moral philosophers towards utilitarianism and others towards Kantianism . The pragmatic method assesses the truth or falsity of theories by looking at the consequences of accepting them. In this sense, "[t]he test of truth is utility: it's true if it works". Pragmatists approach intractable philosophical disputes in a down-to-earth fashion by asking about

19992-445: The natural sciences. Seeing it as the attempt to clarify concepts and increase understanding, on the other hand, usually leads to a methodology much more focused on apriori reasoning. In this sense, philosophical methodology is closely tied up with the question of how philosophy is to be defined . Different conceptions of philosophy often associated it with different goals, leading to certain methods being more or less suited to reach

20160-451: The nature, sources, and types of values in general. Some philosophers understand value theory as a subdiscipline of ethics. This is based on the idea that what people should do is affected by value considerations but not necessarily limited to them. Another view sees ethics as a subdiscipline of value theory. This outlook follows the idea that ethics is concerned with moral values affecting what people can control, whereas value theory examines

20328-405: The objective conceptions of values more prominent in economics, which understands values as aspects of commodities. Philosophical methodology Philosophical methodology encompasses the methods used to philosophize and the study of these methods . Methods of philosophy are procedures for conducting research, creating new theories, and selecting between competing theories. In addition to

20496-403: The one hand, it has proved very difficult to give a precise formulation that includes all scientific claims, including the ones about unobservables . This is connected to the problem of underdetermination in the philosophy of science : the problem that the observational evidence is often insufficient to determine which theory is true. This would lead to the implausible conclusion that even for

20664-425: The one hand, philosophers may consult their intuitions in relation to very general principles, which may then be used to deduce further theorems. Another technique, which is often applied in ethics, consists in considering concrete scenarios instead of general principles. This often takes the form of thought experiments , in which certain situations are imagined with the goal of determining the possible consequences of

20832-418: The one hand, they may be derived from axioms that are not as self-evident as their defenders proclaim and thereby fail to inherit the status of absolute certainty. For example, many philosophers have rejected the claim of self-evidence concerning one of René Descartes 's first principles stating that "he can know that whatever he perceives clearly and distinctly is true only if he first knows that God exists and

21000-776: The overall value of the world. One motivation for value pluralism is the observation that people value diverse types of things, including happiness, friendship, success, and knowledge. This diversity becomes particularly prominent when people face difficult decisions between competing values, such as choosing between friendship and career success. Since monists accept only one source of intrinsic value, they explain this observation by holding that other items in this diversity have only instrumental value or, in some cases, no value at all. Pluralists have proposed various accounts of how their view affects practical decisions. Rational decisions often rely on value comparisons to determine which course of action should be pursued. Some pluralists discuss

21168-764: The participants' lives, aiming to understand the relative importance assigned to each of them. The Schwartz theory of basic human values is a modification of the Rokeach Value Survey that seeks to provide a more cross-cultural and universal assessment. It arranges the values in a circular manner to reflect that neighboring values are compatible with each other, such as tradition and security, while values on opposing sides may conflict with each other, such as tradition and self-direction. Ethics and value theory are overlapping fields of inquiry. Ethics studies moral phenomena, focusing on how people should act or which behaviors are morally right. Value theory investigates

21336-425: The perspective of individual agents and societal systems. Economists view evaluations as a driving force underlying economic activity. They use the notion of economic value and related evaluative concepts to understand decision-making processes, resource allocation, and the impact of policies. The economic value or benefit of a commodity is the advantage it provides to an economic agent , often measured in terms of

21504-511: The perspectives of ethics and value theory, asserting that the rightness of an action depends on the value of its consequences. Consequentialists compare possible courses of action, saying that people should follow the one leading to the best overall consequences. The overall consequences of an action are the totality of its effects, or how it impacts the world by starting a causal chain of events that would not have occurred otherwise. Distinct versions of consequentialism rely on different theories of

21672-457: The phenomenological method is to suspend preconceived ideas and judgments to understand the essence of experiences as they present themselves to consciousness. The analysis of concepts and ordinary language is another method of inquiry. By examining terms and sentences used to talk about values, value theorists aim to clarify their meanings, uncover crucial distinctions, and formulate arguments for and against axiological theories. For example,

21840-511: The philosophical methodology is "the general study of criteria for theory selection". For example, Occam’s Razor is a methodological principle of theory selection favoring simple over complex theories. A closely related aspect of philosophical methodology concerns the question of which conventions one needs to adopt necessarily to succeed at theory making. But in a more narrow sense, only guidelines that help philosophers learn about facts studied by philosophy qualify as philosophical methods. This

22008-441: The philosophical methods are also commonly used implicitly in more crude forms by regular people and are only given a more careful, critical, and systematic exposition in philosophical methodology. Methodological skepticism , also referred to as Cartesian doubt, uses systematic doubt as a method of philosophy. It is motivated by the search for an absolutely certain foundation of knowledge. The method for finding these foundations

22176-403: The policy is positive or negative. Axiological utilitarianism accepts the additivity principle, saying that the total value is simply the sum of all individual values. Axiological egalitarians are not only interested in the sum total of value but also in how the values are distributed. They argue that an outcome with a balanced advantage distribution is better than an outcome where some benefit

22344-420: The possible consequences and gain insight into the underlying problem. For example, philosopher Robert Nozick imagines an experience machine that can virtually simulate an ideal life. Based on his observation that people would not want to spend the rest of their lives in this pleasurable simulation, Nozick argues against the hedonist claim that pleasure is the only source of intrinsic value. According to him,

22512-486: The practices that ensure that these standards are met. Philosophical methods can be understood as tools that help the theorist do good philosophy and arrive at knowledge. The normative question of philosophical methodology is quite controversial since different schools of philosophy often have very different views on what constitutes good philosophy and how to achieve it. A great variety of philosophical methods has been proposed. Some of these methods were developed as

22680-504: The pragmatic method base it on the pragmatic maxim , of which various versions exist. An important version is due to Charles Sanders Peirce : "Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of those effects is the whole of our conception of the object." Another formulation is due to William James : "To develop perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what effects of

22848-414: The question of whether an individual should murder an innocent person if this prevents the murder of two innocent people by a different perpetrator. The agent-neutral perspective tends to affirm this idea since one murder is preferable to two. The agent-relative perspective tends to reject this conclusion, arguing that the initial murder should be avoided since it negatively impacts the agent-relative value of

23016-558: The realization of this goal. This view is exemplified in Aristotle 's focus on rationality as the nature and ideal state of human beings. Non-humanistic versions extend perfectionism to the natural world in general, arguing that excellence as a source of intrinsic value is not limited to the human realm. Monist theories of value assert that there is only a single source of intrinsic value. They agree that various things have value but maintain that all fundamentally good things belong to

23184-459: The reason why it intuitively seems to a person that a proposition is true without providing any epistemological support for this proposition. Another objection, often raised in the empirical and naturalist tradition, is that intuitions do not constitute a reliable source of knowledge since the practitioner restricts themselves to an inquiry from their armchair instead of looking at the world to make empirical observations. Reflective equilibrium

23352-633: The related terms are used in ordinary language. In this sense, it is related to the method of common sense but focuses more on linguistic aspects. Some types of ordinary language philosophy only take a negative form in that they try to show how philosophical problems are not real problems at all. Instead, it is aimed to show that false assumptions, to which humans are susceptible due to the confusing structure of natural language , are responsible for this false impression. Other types take more positive approaches by defending and justifying philosophical claims, for example, based on what sounds insightful or odd to

23520-478: The relation between personal and impersonal value. The agglomerative theory says that impersonal value is nothing but the sum of all personal values. Another view understands impersonal value as a specific type of personal value taken from the perspective of the universe as a whole. Agent-relative value is sometimes contrasted with personal value as another person-specific limitation of the evaluative outlook. Agent-relative values affect moral considerations about what

23688-508: The roots of value theory reach back to the ancient period , this area of thought was only conceived as a distinct discipline in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the term axiology was coined. The terms value theory and axiology are usually used as synonyms but some philosophers distinguish between them. According to one characterization, axiology is a subfield of value theory that limits itself to theories about what things are valuable and how valuable they are. The term timology

23856-487: The same theory is both true and false. The transcendental method ( German : Transzendentale Methodenlehre ) is used to study phenomena by reflecting on the conditions of possibility of these phenomena. This method usually starts out with an obvious fact, often about our mental life , such as what we know or experience . It then goes on to argue that for this fact to obtain, other facts also have to obtain: they are its conditions of possibility . This type of argument

24024-423: The same type. For example, hedonists hold that nothing but pleasure has intrinsic value, while desire theorists argue that desire satisfaction is the only source of fundamental goodness. Pluralists reject this view, contending that a simple single-value system is too crude to capture the complexity of the sphere of values. They say that diverse sources of value exist independently of one another, each contributing to

24192-455: The sciences, to adopt falsificationism instead. It is a less radical approach that holds that serious theories or hypotheses should at least be falsifiable, i.e. there should be some empirical observations that could prove them wrong. The goal of conceptual analysis is to decompose or analyze a given concept into its fundamental constituents. It consists in considering a philosophically interesting concept, like knowledge , and determining

24360-440: The sciences. Philosophical methodology studies the methods of philosophy. It is not primarily concerned with whether a philosophical position, such as metaphysical dualism or utilitarianism , is true or false. Instead, it asks how one can determine which position should be adopted. In the widest sense, any principle for choosing between competing theories may be considered as part of the methodology of philosophy. In this sense,

24528-403: The second-order issue of which philosophical methods to use. One way to evaluate philosophical methods is to assess how well they do at solving philosophical problems. The question of the nature of philosophy has important implications for which methods of inquiry are appropriate to philosophizing. Seeing philosophy as an empirical science brings its methods much closer to the methods found in

24696-442: The source, beneficiary, and function of the value. A thing has intrinsic or final value if it is good in itself or good for its own sake. This means that it is good independent of external factors or outcomes. A thing has extrinsic or instrumental value if it is useful or leads to other good things. In other words, it is a means to bring about a desired end. For example, tools like microwaves or money have instrumental value thanks to

24864-512: The sources of value have been proposed. They aim to clarify what kinds of things are intrinsically good. The historically influential theory of hedonism states that how people feel is the only source of value. More specifically, it says that pleasure is the only intrinsic good and pain is the only intrinsic evil. According to this view, everything else only has instrumental value to the extent that it leads to pleasure or pain, including knowledge, health, and justice. Hedonists usually understand

25032-438: The sources of value. Classical utilitarianism , a prominent form of consequentialism, says that moral actions produce the greatest amount of pleasure for the greatest number of people. It combines a consequentialist outlook on right action with a hedonist outlook on pleasure as the only source of intrinsic value. Economics is a social science studying how goods and services are produced, distributed, and consumed, both from

25200-511: The specific context of the expression into account, which may considerably alter its meaning. This criticism is partially mitigated by J. L. Austin 's approach to ordinary language philosophy. According to him, ordinary language already has encoded many important distinctions and is our point of departure in theorizing. But "ordinary language is not the last word: in principle, it can everywhere be supplemented and improved upon and superseded". However, it also falls prey to another criticism: that it

25368-477: The status of truth by giving a concrete historical reconstruction of how their development was contingent on power relations in society. This is usually accompanied by the assertion that these beliefs were accepted and became established, because of non-rational considerations, such as because they served the interests of a predominant class. The disagreements within philosophy do not only concern which first-order philosophical claims are true, they also concern

25536-476: The term pleasure in a broad sense that covers all kinds of enjoyable experiences, including bodily pleasures of food and sex as well as more intellectual or abstract pleasures, like the joy of reading a book or being happy about a friend's promotion. Pleasurable experiences come in degrees, and hedonists usually associate their intensity and duration with the magnitude of value they have. Many hedonists identify pleasure and pain as symmetric opposites, meaning that

25704-401: The terms intrinsic value and final value interchangeably, just like the terms extrinsic value and instrumental value . This practice has been questioned in the 20th century based on the idea that they are similar but not identical concepts. According to this view, a thing has intrinsic value if the source of its value is an intrinsic property , meaning that the value does not depend on how

25872-437: The theorems may be faulty, for example, because it does not follow a rule of inference or because it includes implicitly assumed premises that are not themselves self-evident. Phenomenology is the science of appearances - broadly speaking, the science of phenomenon, given that almost all phenomena are perceived. The phenomenological method aims to study the appearances themselves and the relations found between them. This

26040-421: The theory in question is prima facie suspect and the burden of proof is always on its side. But such a shift in the burden of proof does not constitute a blind belief in common sense since it leaves open the possibility that, for various issues, there is decisive evidence against the common-sense opinion. The method of ordinary language philosophy consists in tackling philosophical questions based on how

26208-435: The theory itself or consequences that can be drawn from it violate common sense. For common sense philosophers, it is not the task of philosophy to question common sense. Instead, they should analyze it to formulate theories in accordance with it. One important argument against this method is that common sense has often been wrong in the past, as is exemplified by various scientific discoveries. This suggests that common sense

26376-596: The theory which, among its competitors, is the most conservative, i.e. the one closest to the beliefs we currently hold. One problem with these methods of theory selection is that it is usually not clear how the different virtues are to be weighted, often resulting in cases where they are unable to resolve disputes between competing theories that excel at different virtues. Methodological naturalism holds that all philosophical claims are synthetic claims that ultimately depend for their justification or rejection on empirical observational evidence. In this sense, philosophy

26544-455: The thing is related to other objects. Extrinsic value, by contrast, depends on external relations . This view sees instrumental value as one type of extrinsic value based on causal relations. At the same time, it allows that there are other types of non-instrumental extrinsic value. Final value is understood as what is valued for its own sake, independent of whether intrinsic or extrinsic properties are responsible. Another distinction relies on

26712-471: The thought experiment shows that the value of an authentic connection to reality is not reducible to pleasure. Phenomenologists provide a detailed first-person description of the experience of values. They closely examine emotional experiences, ranging from desire, interest, and preference to feelings in the form of love and hate. However, they do not limit their inquiry to these phenomena, asserting that values permeate experience at large. A key aspect of

26880-464: The underlying value attitudes responsible for picking one course of action rather than another. Various catalogs or scales of values have been proposed to measure value priorities. The Rokeach Value Survey considers a total of 36 values divided into two groups: instrumental values, like honesty and capability, which serve as means to promote terminal values, such as freedom and family security. It asks participants to rank them based on their impact on

27048-491: The useful functions they perform. In some cases, the thing produced this way has itself instrumental value, like when using money to buy a microwave. This can result in a chain of instrumentally valuable things in which each link gets its value by causing the following link. Intrinsically valuable things stand at the endpoint of these chains and ground the value of all the links that come before them. One suggestion to distinguish between intrinsic and instrumental value relies on

27216-411: The value distinguish between self- and other-oriented values. A historically influential approach identifies three spheres of value: truth , goodness, and beauty. For example, the neo-Kantian philosopher Wilhelm Windelband characterizes them as the highest goals of consciousness , with thought aiming at truth, will aiming at goodness, and emotion aiming at beauty. A similar view, proposed by

27384-422: The value of pleasure balances out the disvalue of pain if they have the same intensity. However, some hedonists reject this symmetry and give more weight to avoiding pain than to experiencing pleasure. Although it is widely accepted that pleasure is valuable, the hedonist claim that it is the only source of value is controversial. Desire theories offer a slightly different account, stating that desire satisfaction

27552-486: The view that nothing outside the present exists. Philosophical presentists usually accept the very common belief that dinosaurs existed but have trouble in providing a truthmaker for this belief since they deny existence to past entities. In philosophy, the term " genealogical method " refers to a form of criticism that tries to expose commonly held beliefs by uncovering their historical origin and function. For example, it may be used to reject specific moral claims or

27720-488: The way of studying how they appear to be and thereby mislead the researcher into thinking they know the answer instead of looking for themselves. The phenomenological method can also be seen as a reaction to methodological skepticism since its defenders traditionally claimed that it could lead to absolute certainty and thereby help philosophy achieve the status of a rigorous science. But phenomenology has been heavily criticized because of this overly optimistic outlook concerning

27888-400: The word "good" modifies the meaning of another term. To be attributively good as a certain type means to possess certain qualities characteristic of that type. For example, a good knife is sharp and a good thief has the skill of stealing without getting caught. Attributive goodness contrasts with predicative goodness. The sentence "Pleasure is good" is an example since the word good is used as

28056-509: Was recognized for his many philosophical and religious writings, and named to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques . Lavelle's work aroused much interest in the interwar period , yet received less attention in the second half of the twentieth century, although he was recognized by some of the greatest French philosophers of the 20th century, such as Merleau-Ponty , Gilles Deleuze , Paul Ricœur and Pierre Hadot , In addition to

28224-518: Was their wonder, astonishment, that first led men to philosophize and still leads them". This position is also adopted in the more recent philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann . Various other types of methods were discussed in ancient Greek philosophy , like analysis, synthesis, dialectics, demonstration, definition, and reduction to absurdity. The medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas identifies composition and division as ways of forming propositions while he sees invention and judgment as forms of reasoning from

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