Abstract

John Searle reflections on how to derive “Ought” from an “Is’” present a general theory of the sources of normativity within human civilizations. This chapter explores an alternative grounding of normativity on “laws of essence”, a grounding that proceeds by addressing the crucial problem of how to locate essences in a world of facts. To that end, classical phenomenology is shown to be an ontology of concreteness, but this, far from removing it from the dimension of ideals and norms—even practical, ethical, and political ones—instead makes it the philosophy of ideals and relative “oughts” par excellence.