What Does Normativity “Explain”?
In: Stephen Turner and the Philosophy of the SocialSearch for other papers by Peter Olen in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Abstract
Stephen Turner’s Normaitivity is an under-discussed challenge to dominant conceptions of normativity. I explore main themes in Turner’s work while entertaining possible challenges and objections to his arguments about Wilfrid Sellars’s philosophy. My central focus is Turner’s rejection of normativity as explanatorily necessary in accounts of persons and behavior, especially as it pertains to more recent defenses of Sellars’s philosophy (as found in the work of Willem deVries and Jim O’Shea). I conclude by arguing that so-called normativist and anti-normativists positions on explanation must both concede parts of their position in order to count as adequate explanations of human behavior.