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Normative Concepts
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What is it for a concept to be normative? Some possible answers are explored and rejected, among them that a concept is normative if it ascribes a normative property. The positive answer defended is that a concept is normative if it is in the right way associated with a normative use. Among issues discussed along the way are the nature of analyticity, and there being a notion of analyticity—what I call semantic analyticity—such that a statement can be analytic in this sense while failing to be true. Considerations regarding thick concepts and slurs are brought to bear on the issues that come up.
Title: Normative Concepts
Description:
What is it for a concept to be normative? Some possible answers are explored and rejected, among them that a concept is normative if it ascribes a normative property.
The positive answer defended is that a concept is normative if it is in the right way associated with a normative use.
Among issues discussed along the way are the nature of analyticity, and there being a notion of analyticity—what I call semantic analyticity—such that a statement can be analytic in this sense while failing to be true.
Considerations regarding thick concepts and slurs are brought to bear on the issues that come up.
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