Frankfurt lectures on "The Nature of Normativity"

Lecture series at Frankfurt University on "The Nature of Normativity":

December 1, 2010
Professor Robert Pippin (University of Chicago)
Reason's Form

December 8, 2010
Professor Christine Korsgaard (Harvard University)
The Normative Constitution of Agency

December 15, 2010
Professor Joseph Raz (Columbia University)
Normativity: what is it and how can it be explained?

January 12, 2011
Professor Thomas M. Scanlon (Harvard University)
Metaphysical Objections to Normative Truth

January 19, 2011
Professor Robert Brandom (University of Pittsburgh)
From German Idealism to American Pragmatism – and Back

February 16, 2011
Dr. Sabina Lovibond (University of Oxford)
Practical Reason and Character-Formation

Normativity is the most everyday phenomenon. Yet it poses major problems for philosophical analysis. It everydayness can be seen from the fact that, even though we are not directly forced to do so, we regard ourselves as bound by a variety of norms, values and rules in our thought and action – for instance social conventions of politeness, a professional ethos, bonds of friendship, promises that must be kept, right up to general moral norms. Even in the case of legally binding norms, different explanations are offered of the grounds of their validity. The central question concerning normativity is: What is the source of the binding power of such norms, values and rules? Is it based on instrumental considerations, social expectations, autonomous self-commitment or on a normative reality beyond the empirical world, which may be explicable only in metaphysical terms?