Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.8, 2014

 

Normative Questions: The Semantic Transformation and the Pragmatic Approach

(Abstract)

 

Guo Guichun and Zhao Xiaodan

 

The setting up of a philosophical paradigm involves discerning its normative basis, but the normative question itself has long been the subject of controversy. Kant’s normative turn highlighted the significance of the concept itself and prepared the way for the semantic transformation of normative questions. Traditional research on normativeness often ignores latent normativeness, preferring to explore strong normativeness. A semantic analysis of normativeness indicates that it appears primarily as irreducible weak normativeness. The relevant semantic analysis is closely related to the normative nature of contents, that is, it must unite the speaker’s concrete speech acts and state of mind. This reveals the pragmatic implications and tendencies of normativeness. Pragmatic normativeness can lay the foundation for semantic normativeness and can regulate and guide the latter. Highlighting the normative nature of language practice thus shows the unique methodological significance of the pragmatic approach to this question.