Truth and Normativity
Truth is often said to be “normative”. But in what sense? Certainly not in the sense that if a proposition is true one is under the obligation to believe it, to accept it or to value it. The relation between truth and normativity is more at the level of our truth-seeking activities. They define the project of an intellectual ethics. But there are different projects of this kind, depending on how one conceives truth and on what kind of normative concepts one takes to be fundamental. I try here to defend a truth based and knowledge-based conception of intellectual ethics. If time allows, I shall draw some conclusions about issues such as academic freedom.
Biography:
Pascal Engel studied at Ecole normale Supérieure rue d’Ulm, Sorbonne, Université de Provence and at UC Berkeley. He has taught in the Universities of Paris XII, Grenoble, Caen, Paris IV Sorbonne, and at the University of Geneva. He has held visiting positions in a number of universities among which Montréal, Hong Kong, Tunis, Athènes, Aarrhus, Canberra, Oslo, Leuven,Lund, Pékin, Taiwan, Saint Louis, Nottingham. He is secretary general of Institut international de philosophie. He has written on the philosophy of logic, philosophy of language and on the philosophy of mind. He is currently working on issues in epistemology, especially the epistemology of belief , epistemic norms and reasons . He is also interested in theories of truth. Among his books: The Norm of truth (1991), Davidson et la philosophie du langage (1994), Introduction à la philosophie de l’esprit (1994) Philosophie et psychologie (1996), La dispute (1997), Truth (2002), Ramsey, Truth and Success (with Jérôme Dokic, 2002), A quoi bon la vérité? (with R. Rorty, 2005), Va savoir! (2007), Les lois de l'esprit (2012), Les vices du savoir (2019) Manuel rationaliste de survie (2020) and as editor Inquiries into Meaning and Truth (1991, with N. Cooper), Précis de philosophie analytique (2000), and Believing and accepting (2000). He has been editor of dialectica from 2005 to 2011. He is directeur d'études at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales.
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/pascalengelehessfr/home