Axiology

Axiology, from the Greek axia (αξια, value, worth), is the study of value or quality. It is often thought to include ethics and aesthetics—philosophical fields that depend crucially on notions of value—and sometimes it is held to lay the groundwork for these fields, and thus to be similar to value theory and meta-ethics. The term was used in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but in recent decades, value theory has tended to replace it in discussions of the nature of value or goodness in general. Main article: Goodness and value theory.

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One area in which research continues to be pursued is so-called formal axiology, or the attempt to lay out principles regarding value with mathematical rigor.

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The term is also used sometimes in economics.

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A popular work by Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, introduced the term "axiology" to a general audience, although not in any technical context.

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Ethics: Ethics is the branch of axiology – one of the four major branches of philosophy, alongside metaphysics, epistemology, and logic – which attempts to understand the nature of morality; to define that which is right from that which is wrong. The Western tradition of ethics is sometimes ca...

Aesthetics: Aesthetics (also esthetics) is the philosophy of beauty and art....

Value theory: Value theory concerns itself with the worth, utility, trading or economic value, moral value, legal value, quantitative or aesthetic value of people and things - or the combination of all these....