
Throughout this second book, we have explored several non-essential aspects of axiology: how such a project might align with our era, the reconfiguration of knowledge it would entail, whether it is practical or theoretical in nature, and so forth.
These aspects are non-essential because it is conceivable that the content of axiology could still be developed without addressing these questions.
The essential character of a discipline likely lies in its method. As Descartes stated, It were far better never to think of investigating truth at all, than to do so without a method
1. Indeed, all results a discipline can achieve, along with the procedures used to reach them, arise from the method employed.
I will now dedicate our third stage of reflection to developing this method and outlining the results it may yield.
Book III/ A method for axiology
I/ Where to find the value of things?
A/ In the object?
When we seek the value of things, our most instinctive reaction is likely to search for it within the things themselves. I refer to this instinct as ‘axiological objectivism’. Value is scrutinised within the object itself, at its core, studied through various methods; by observing the world directly, we believe we will uncover its value.
The failure of this approach seems clear if we accept that values remain unfounded. We have already explored some of the latent, unthematized methods that objectivism employed, such as the qualitative method and hedonism; however, we must now examine the two methods that objectivism both favoured and conceptualised: intuitionism and formal axiology.
1/ Axiological intuitionism
1/ Presentation of value intuitionism
It may be somewhat inaccurate to describe intuitionism as a 'method'. A method, in fact, is typically characterised by a set of procedures—a collection of 'techniques'—used to reach a truth that is not immediately accessible. A method outlines the rules through which a goal is to be achieved. Axiological intuitionism, however, asserts that there is no need to rely on specific mediating rules to understand the value of a thing, as this value presents itself to us directly.
Moreover, a method entails a set of rules devised to solve a problem. For intuitionism, however, the problem of values does not even arise. This does not imply that, for intuitionism, the solution to the problem of values is self-evident; rather, it suggests that there is no problem of values at all. The value of any given thing is immediately apparent to us, requiring no further questioning. Everyone instinctively knows what holds value and what does not, as intuition—a faculty within us—reveals it directly.
Those who raise the question of values are likened to philosophers who, as Berkeley says in his Principles of Human Knowledge, have first raised a dust, and then […] complain that [they] can’t see
. In other words, philosophical reflection has not uncovered a problem—namely, the problem of values—but has instead created an artificial problem from scratch, where there are only solutions or, rather, since a solution presupposes a problem, only facts.
1. Rules for the direction of mind, IV