Prescriptive and Descriptive Approaches

Philosophy as a discipline inquires into “What is truth? What is good? What is beauty? What is existence? The disciplines within philosophy, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Aesthetics set out to clarify some understanding of these questions, what they are, how they apply, and often what they ought to be. This aspect of what things ought-to-be is a prescriptive approach. It seeks to prescribe answers and ways of meeting these questions, and at times does so with the intent that this is what these fields and what things really are. This approach is beneficial, and making a claim with this certainty challenges one to assess the validity of an argument and its evidence. Another approach is a descriptive one, that is to describe what answers to these questions a person or a tradition espouses. In a descriptive approach the intent is not to state what ought to be, but rather what IS for a given person or tradition. Prescriptive and descriptive approaches can inform each other and facilitate dialogue. Truebeautyisgood practices both these approaches and put them into dialogue.

Salt Mine, "Salinas" outside of Cusco Peru, 2014

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