ONT Normative Sciences
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gathering more wool on the "problem of normative sciences".
> Subj: Situation Normal
> Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 23:08:49 -0400
> From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@oakland.edu>
> To: Jean-Marc Orliaguet <jmo@medialab.chalmers.se>
> CC: Grande Divine Semio Comedy <gdsemiocom@univ-perp.fr>,
> Stand Up Ontology <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>
>
> Jean-Marc Orliaguet wrote:
> >
> > A standard is an established set of rules agreed upon by a community,
> > as such its mode of being is, as Peirce would write, "esse in futuro",
> > a thirdness. There are three ways in which a standard may be reached:
> > firstly it may already be a de facto standard, i.e. it exists as such
> > independently of anything else, secondly it may be imposed by the force
> > of authority, and thirdly it may be reached through scientific investigation
> > and be subject to modifications. Why not continue with the subdivisions yourself ... ?
>
> Here, I almost begin to understand what you are saying,
> but my mind just does not work in that subdivisive way.
>
> I am guessing that you are talking about standards as norms,
> and so we are once again in the realm of normative sciences,
> or, as I'm starting to think of them, the "design sciences",
> principally: aesthetics, ethics, logic. And it's here, at
> this point, that people divide, if not their objects. Some
> people speak of absolute values; it appears that pragmatic
> thinkers are determined to speak of relative values, and so
> I can interpret what you say about this "esse in futuro" or
> this "thirdness" like so:
>
> A normative inquiry is one that seeks to know what is best in itself,
> what is the best way to achieve what is best in itself, and what is
> the best sign of the best way to achieve what is best in itself.
> Though I have stated the questions, for effect, in the singular
> throughout, it may well be that the answers are a plurality.
>
> When you say "being in the future", I take that to mean the
> commonly recognized property of "intentional objects" to be
> "not of necessity existent" (n.o.n.existent) in the present
> actuality. Is that what you mean? If so, then this notion
> is already covered by the connotation of the Greek "pragma".
>
> Now, here's the rub. What could possibly go to support a claim
> that any agent, whether community, culture, discipline, field,
> group, person, or science, has a knowledge of what is best
> in any of these three regards?
>
> Jon Awbrey
>
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