Objective ‘truth’ exists past our perception, we are trying to find empirical and logical relations that have some functional relation to truth! Accepted premises are the underlying assumptions we accept as a community, either because we think they’ve achieved this functional relationship or are achieving something else. Do me the distinction is pretty useful 🙂

Ahh, sorry you are completely right – I need a coffee and to learn to read! I read “employ” as “empty” and thought you were saying the rhetoric was empty!!!! Agree we employ it almost constantly 🙂

‘Truth’ vs ‘accepted premises’??? Sounds like a distinction without a difference to me!

It may be slight hyperbole but not much: Google tells me that we have written ‘normative’ in more than 11% of our posts!

I wouldn’t quite use the term truths – more accepted premises 😉

“Regular readers of this blog will know that we employ this rhetoric at every opportunity”

Think that is a little strong …

I enjoy using the positive-normative framework as a descriptive device, but I think your inference that we are just placing accepted premises in one and questionable premises in the other is right on. Making the premises/assumptions transparent and describing there effects is very useful – but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that we can reach conclusions without value judgments (premises up for debate).