Natural Sciences and Values

Abstract

Cordero reconsiders —from the post-Kuhnian view of Natural Science— the fact/value dicotomy. His analysis involves: (1) inquiring about the limits of objectivity, and (2) challenging the empiricist tradition in the areas of value theory and objectivity. The author examines Putnam’s position, according the which, a fact always depend upon a value and every value materializes itself in a fact.

Putnam also claims that predicative control is fundamental for Natural Sciences and makes objectivity possible. Cordero thinks that besides predicative-objectivity, so appreciated in Natural Sciences, there are other forms of objectivity. They might be forms grounded on other virtues than those mentioned by Putnam, e.g. the virtue of searching for human liberation.
[J. F.]