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Outlines of a Formal Theory of Value, I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Donald Davidson ,
J. C. C. McKinsey  and
Patrick Suppes
Donald Davidson
Affiliation:
Stanford University
J. C. C. McKinsey
Affiliation:
Stanford University
Patrick Suppes
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Extract

Contemporary philosophers interested in value theory appear to be largely concerned with questions of the following sort:

What is value?

What is the meaning of the word ‘good’?

Does the attribution of value to an object have a cognitive, or merely an emotive, significance?

The first question is metaphysical; to ask it is analogous to asking in physics:

What is matter?

What is electricity?

The others are generally treated as semantical questions; to ask them is analogous to asking in statistics:

What is the meaning of the word ‘probable’?

Does an attribution of probability express an objective fact, or merely a subjective attitude?

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , April 1955 , pp. 140 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1955

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Footnotes

1

The unexpected death of Professor J. C. C. McKinsey after the completion of an earlier and much shorter draft of the present paper means that although he played a major part in formulating the fundamental ideas he cannot be held accountable for any of the shortcomings of the final version.

We are indebted to Professor David Sachs and Dr. Leo Simons for helpful comments on the first draft. An early version of the paper was read by Professor McKinsey at the University of California at Los Angeles on May 23, 1953, and a useful critique was given by Dr. Alexander Sesonske. We have benefited from numerous discussions with members of the Value Theory Project at Stanford University. Most of the content of this paper plus some additional material was issued as Report No. 1 of the Value Theory Project, 10 February 1954.

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