Cool Reflexion and the Criticism of Values: Is, Ought, and Objectivity in Hume\u27s Social Science

Is the fact/value distinction incompatible with the possibility of a social science which is both objective and evaluative (or normative)? Does support of the latter require rejection of the former and vice versa? This article presents an indirect argument against the incompatibility of the fact/value distinction and an objectively evaluative social science. My procedure is to show that David Hume, whose is/ought distinction is the locus classicus of the fact/value distinction, is committed both to the view that values cannot be derived from facts and to the view that social science is not (and should not be) value-neutral. Furthermore, Hume\u27s position is free from any logical flaws. My conclusion is that it is false to say that the fact/value distinction entails a value-neutral social science, and that it is therefore utterly unnecessary for critics of such a science to waste their time attempting to bridge the gap between facts and values

Socrates\u27 Aspasian Oration: The Play of Philosophy and Politics in Plato\u27s \u3ci\u3eMenexenus\u3c/i\u3e

Plato\u27s Menexenus is overlooked, perhaps because of the difficulty of gauging its irony. In it, Socrates recites a funeral oration he says he learned from Aspasia, describing events that occurred after the deaths of both Socrates and Pericles\u27 mistress. But the dialogue\u27s ironic complexity is one reason it is a central part of Plato\u27s political philosophy. In both style and substance, Menexenus rejects the heroic account of Athenian democracy proposed by Thucydides\u27 Pericles, separating Athenian citizenship from the quest for immortal glory; its picture of the relationship of philosopher to polis illustrates Plato\u27s conception of the true politikos in the Statesman. In both dialogues, philosophic response to politics is neither direct rule nor apolitical withdrawal. Menexenus presents a Socrates who influences politics indirectly, by recasting Athenian history and thus transforming the terms in which its political alternatives are conceived

Cool Reflexion and the Criticism of Values: Is, Ought, and Objectivity in Hume\u27s Social Science

Is the fact/value distinction incompatible with the possibility of a social science which is both objective and evaluative (or normative)? Does support of the latter require rejection of the former and vice versa? This article presents an indirect argument against the incompatibility of the fact/value distinction and an objectively evaluative social science. My procedure is to show that David Hume, whose is/ought distinction is the locus classicus of the fact/value distinction, is committed both to the view that values cannot be derived from facts and to the view that social science is not (and should not be) value-neutral. Furthermore, Hume\u27s position is free from any logical flaws. My conclusion is that it is false to say that the fact/value distinction entails a value-neutral social science, and that it is therefore utterly unnecessary for critics of such a science to waste their time attempting to bridge the gap between facts and values