Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Lectures on "The Nature of Normativity" (videos)

Five videos with lectures on "The Nature of Normativity", Frankfurt University, October 2010 - February 2011:

Professor Robert Pippin (Chicago)
Reason's Form

Professor Christine Korsgaard (Harvard)
The Normative Constitution of Agency

Professor Thomas M. Scanlon (Harvard)
Metaphysical Objections to Normative Truth

Professor Robert Brandom (Pittsburgh)
From German Idealism to American Pragmatism – and Back
[Word]

Dr. Sabina Lovibond (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?

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