The project Contemporary Expressivisms and the Indispensability of Normative Vocabulary: Scope and Limits of the Expressivist Hypothesis (FFI2016-80088-P), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, has a twofold aim:
- On the one hand, we will focus on some of the central aspects of several varieties of contemporary expressivism: we will analyze to what extent the main theses of these positions can be stated as opposed to other theoretical alternatives (contextualism, relativism) and explore possible applications of expressivism to the account of particular problems, such as the analysis of aesthetic predicates and the nature of affordances.
- On the other hand, we will assess the capacity of these varieties of expressivism to effectively cope with some of the difficulties traditionally associated with this position (the Frege-Geach problem), as well as new challenges due to recent developments of the expressivist hypothesis (the non-factual character of rule following, the descriptive analysis of belief ascription and others). Such assessment will be carried out taking the idea that it is central for the expressivist hypothesis to defend the indispensability of normative vocabulary as a starting point.
This project aims at consolidating the ambitious perspective that has resulted from studying to what extent contemporary expressivism can answer to the challenge of offering a naturalist analysis of normative notions better than some of its main competitors. The study of normativity and rule following will also make us revisit some of the central tenets of recent expressivism.
In this site you can find the aims, members, and activities of this project.
