ssor Josiah Royce's _The World and the
Individual, First Series_, pp. 426-427.

CHAPTER VII

THE NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND THE PROBLEMS OF RELIGION

[Sidenote: The Normative Sciences.]

Sect. 73. There are three sets of problems whose general philosophical
importance depends upon the place which metaphysics assigns to the
_human critical faculties_. Man passes judgment upon that which claims
to be _true_, _beautiful_, or _good_, thus referring to ideals and
standards that define these values. Attempts to make these ideals
explicit, and to formulate principles which regulate their attainment,
have resulted in the development of the three so-called _normative
sciences_: _logic_, _aesthetics_, and _ethics_. These sciences are said
to owe their origin to the Socratic method, and it is indeed certain
that their problem is closely related to the general rationalistic
attitude.[180:1] In Plato's dialogue, "Protagoras," one may observe the
manner of the inception of both ethics and logic. The question at issue
between Socrates and the master sophist Protagoras, is concerning the
possibility of teaching virtue. Protagoras conducts his side of the
discussion with the customary rhetorical flourish, expounding in set
speeches the tradition and usage in which such a possibility is
accepted. Socrates, on the other hand, conceives the issue quite
differently. One can neither affirm nor deny anything of virtue unless
one knows _what is meant by it_. Even the possession of such a meaning
was scarcely recognized by Protagoras, who was led by Socrates's
questions to attribute to the various virtues an external grouping
analogous to that of the parts of the face. But Socrates shows that
since justice, temperance, courage, and the like, are admittedly similar
in that they are all virtues, they must have in common some essence,
which is virtue in general. This he seeks to define in the terms,
_virtue is knowledge_. The interest which Socrates here shows in the
reduction of the ordinary moral judgments to a system centering in some
single fundamental principle, is the ethical interest. But this is at
the same time a particular application of the general rationalistic
method of definition, and of the general rationalistic postulate that
one knows nothing until one can form unitary and determinate
conceptions. The recognition which Socrates thus gives to criteria of
knowledge is an expression of the logical interest. In a certain sense