Axiology is the science of value. The word Axiology is derived from two Greek roots ‘axios’ (worth or value) and ‘logos’ (logic or theory) and so literally it means the theory of value.

Philosophical and Formal Axiology

 

 

There are two different and distinct areas of axiology, the philosophical and the formal. The philosophical side of Axiology started thousands of years ago with moral philosophers like Aristotle.

Aristotle was not only a moral philosopher but a physicist; he described motion or movement as turning potentiality in to actuality. Galileo turned this in to a science with his production of the equation v = s/t.  Galileo then said ‘if this formula is correct according to my measurements, then I don’t have to look at observations of mechanical motion any more at all, all I have to do is look at what the equation means’

Aristotle within his book ‘Ethics’ defined goodness as the activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. [1] Virtue consisted of intellectual virtue and moral virtue. Intellectual virtue was comprised of theoretical wisdom, practical wisdom and understanding. Experience and time were necessary requirements for the development of intellectual virtue. Moral virtue was controlled by practical wisdom and owed its development to habit. [2]

In formal axiology we have to take Aristotle’s philosophical definition of goodness and we have to change it in to something that meant as much for value as the Galilean definition for motion.

The Axiometrics™ profile is firmly based on the science of Formal Axiology and brings a scientific measure to understanding the fundamental question that eluded the philosophers of old - ‘what is good?’.

Extract: The Measurement of Value by Robert S Hartman