Prof. Amitabh Dasgupta, a former Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hyderabad gave a talk on Questioning the Legitimacy of the Fact/Value Dichotomy at the Human Sciences Research Group (HSRG)’s Weekly Talk Series on 23 August.

Prof. Dasgupta spoke about his research on the fact/value dichotomy propounded by the philosopher David Hume. His research problematizes this dichotomy based primarily on the grounds of epistemology and linguistics. During the session, he talked about the epistemological bias in philosophy, which gave rise to the subject-object division established by the Cartesian tradition. As such, this approach makes a strict division between the world and the mind. The facts are considered as a state of affairs that is independent of the humans, while values are subjective and hence dependent on the mind. Therefore, scientific inquiry receives a rational status while value inquiry becomes a culturally relative inquiry. Professor Dasgupta argues that such a picture deprives us of understanding the nature of values, as he proposes that values are not something internal but rather are a part of the world. In his talk he also raised the concept of moral agency to establish his argument. According to Dasgupta, we are moral agents who have certain normative concerns with respect to the world. He further provided a linguistic argument in support of the illegitimacy of the fact-value dichotomy and suggested that our everyday use of the language shows the entanglement of fact and value. All in all, the session was highly engaging and thought-provoking. The lucid yet rigorous talk by Prof. Dasgupta provoked an elaborate Q&A session, thus marking the success of the event.

August 2023