Since you're quoting me I guess I should clarify my meaning haha

First, I always suggest Webster for a basis.

1 : of, relating to, or determining norms or standards
2 : conforming to or based on norms
3 : prescribing norms

Normative refers to norms, standards of conduct or those qualities of decision behavior we look to as rules. There are norms about how to behave in society, there are norms in ethics and there are norms in politics. Something is normative when we basically say "you ought to do ..." but norms or something being normative does not imply morality. That is simply a subclass of all kinds of norms relating to those values of "goodness" however we define it.

Epistemology is the philosophical discipline of how we claim knowledge. What does it mean for me to say "I know the sun is going to rise tomorrow" or "I know that '2+2=4'," or "I know that if I drink and drive I risk death and imprisonment." There is much more that I could go into on the subject (but the SEP article is an excellent source), which I will articulate in a blog about truth coming soon. The conditions that satisfy our statements about knowledge are very interesting, and one of the important areas of philosophical theorizing. Consider the fact that science itself is an integral part of epistemology because to claim knowledge these days really does depend heavily on it being justified. That justification often comes in the form of reliable methodologies such as science in its most general and generic sense.

Ontology (or metaphysics) is also a central philosophical discpline interested in how we claim something exists, what it means to exist, and what the consequences of existence are. In short, we often say it is the study of "being." One of the areas I'm most interested in on my blog has been between objectivity and subjectivity, and their role in our lives (or can we just do away with the ideas for something more primitive--more basic--that better gets at the central aspects of it that we're interested in knowing about). For instance, materialism is the popular idea that everything is material in some sense, whether it be physical in that we can experience it directly (naive realism) or that we can formulate accurate and justifiable theories about things unperceptable to us, like quantum mechanics (scientific realism). On the other hand, dualism shows up saying that "mental" things are a wholly other class, irreducible and unable to be material, yet still existing. Platonists (based on the classic Greek Plato's writings) claim abstract things have existence in a sense similar, but different from our notions of real objects (platonic realism). It especially shows up in mathematics (or the philosophy of mathematics), which I've brought up before (link). I'm arguing for a wholly different view which includes many important factors from all these areas. It is a kind of social constructivism (structuralism, as I've seen on SEP). I may, in the end, be a kind of relativist, in that maybe ontology is also relative like everything else that can be understood because everything understood has a logical framework, a system or structure to it, and these are -always- relative to certain aspects about that system, and to claim anything about those aspects would mean the system would have to be able to "talk" about the very things which justify that talking. If that is the best we can do, then it is ultimately begging the question with an infinite circle (this may not necessarily be a problem given a coherentist theory of knowledge).

A heuristic is,

"involving or serving as an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving by experimental and especially trial-and-error methods heuristic assumption ; also: of or relating to exploratory problem-solving techniques that utilize self-educating techniques (as the evaluation of feedback) to improve performance heuristic computer program"

For example, I can draw a graph of something to better explain some properties or idea (often done in mathematics). The graph is a learning heuristic. We also talk about heuristics in the sense of algorithms. Some hypothesize that we have mental heuristics that help us make decisions or determine when to act instead of constantly "computing" what to do. Thus, heuristics might be built into the very wiring of our brain to help us make decisions (otherwise, we might sit there infinitely trying to process all the information we ever receive to come to an absolute solution which is impossible, some people suffer from problems like that--they cannot make choices and literally don't know how to).

Hope that helps.

OK.  let me take a stab at this. 

my first instinct is to tell you to substitute all these words with "$h!tty" but since I am refraining from using expletives now, I have to find some more pleasing alternative. 

"Normative" is actually supposed to mean the standard of how things should be.  So to clarify the normative sentence, I would say something like, "It required that people have some reasoning capabilities and that they had some idea of what was personally good or bad."  The opposite of normative is supposedly 'positive' which are actual factual statements.  (People should be smarter about the political world around them.  This is a normative statement.  90% of people surveyed do not like the Axis of Evil but can not name the countries that are in them.  That is a positive statement.)  

I love epistemology.  

Before I get into that, I just want to say that philosophy by itself is confusing only because it is not really answering anything.  Philosophy is a field of questions.  I'd say science of questions but that might get me into some trouble.  So in order to define these philosophical fields, it's best to define them using questions. 

Epistemology asks, 'how do we know what we know?'  In other words, "Huh?"  It's like the kid that keeps asking, "Why?"  and "How do you know?"  So to simplify the above statement (which I'd ask for some more context on since the sentence doesn't seem to make sense to me), I'd say something like, "turning what was supposed to be a political boundary issue into something completely unarguable: a question of semantics and definition."  In the end, when most people use epistemology, they are really talking about semantics.  Which is sad because epistemology is really just too out there to trap into words.   Epistemological statements claim to talk about what it means for something to mean something.  It's supposed to talk about knowledge: what we know and how we know we know it.  (yeah.)

Ontology is the same.  The question is, "what is real?"  Among philosophers, those who study ontology are the wackiest.  At least others choose to operate within a chosen realm of reality.  Ontological statements are statements that claim to talk about what 'is' or what it means for something to 'be.'   It's under the umbrella of metaphysics, which is 'beyond the physical.'  So how do you study the box when you're in the box?  How do you know what's real?  YOU CAN'T!  That's why it's wacky.  Well, ok, you kinda can, but that's a different field altogether and has to do with theology...  But this is kinda what the Matrix played with.  What is prime reality?  Are we really a computer program?  What's real about that?  Is life as a computer program make things any less real?  These are all ontological questions.  (Other things under the umbrealla of metaphysics include things like philosophical theology--God from a philosophical standpoint, philosophical cosmology--the cosmos/universe..., and philosophical anthropology--the study of human existence and nature...  Some questions ontologists ask: is there one reality or many?  Why is there something rather than nothing?  What is this something?  What is nothing?  Which is more basic, being or non-being?  What is 'free will' (anthropology)?   Who am I?  

Axiology, although you didn't mention it, contains ethics, value and beauty, which is kinda what 'normative' falls under.  It asks about what is right and wrong, and what is beatiful and valuable.  Some questions: what is art?  What is beauty?  can anything qualify as art? which mimics which, art or life?

Really, any question you ask can fall into these three categories, which is what we consider the 'broadest' and most 'primary' things in life.  Any question.  Any.  Yeah.  ANY.  

The truth is, these are huge questions, and they all sort of impact each other.  But broken down, they're really quite harmless as long as you know how to deal with them.  Most of the time they can be simplified into smaller (and just as confusing, but at least more understandable) statements.  

Heuristic, as I know it, contrasts algorithms.  Algorithms are set formulas, that if followed, guarentees answers.  Heuristics are shortcuts which, although can cut corners, may not guarantee an answer because some things that are eliminated due to obvious reasons should not have been eliminated.  For example, in trying to unscramble OACSH, you could use an algorithm and yeild about 5! answers, one of which will be correct or you could use heuristics and eliminate, knowing that SHC is not common, words rarely end in C with the letter combinations available, and that SH and CH are combinable at the beginning or ends of words.  They're basically shortcut rules-of-thumb.  Models, if you will, that help clarify other models.  

Hope that wasn't more confusing.  I had fun writing it, anyway. 

@jensa07 - @PilgrimOfTruth - @bryangoodrich - Wow, thanks everyone!  I love having a bunch of philosophy geeks in my circle.    This will take some time to digest.

I never took philosophy nor related subjects in college, so looking at Webster's definition doesn't help at all.  Makes me scratch my head even more.  This really helps.  The existence of these words tells me a lot about human existence.

Bryan - thanks for the SEP link.  Great source.  I see you had many years to ponder over these things already.
Jenny - you rock!
Wes - hm, you made me curious about you.  As for that sandwich, how do you know it exists?

@starberri92 - At least you've used them.  :)

@gpspacey - very far from being a philosophy geek.  learned a lot of this on my own and through some minor classes I took while i was getting my masters.  but yeah, i suppose i've used them.  i remember taking intro to philosophy at Rochester.  Earl Conee or something, the albino professor that was obsessed with ball bearings.  That is about all I remember.  That and the fact that he confused me to death about brains in vats and stuff.  I really think he messed up my brain for the rest my college experience.  OK, it wasn't that bad.  

I think you'll get it though.  You're on the right track, anyway, from the sounds of it.  If we can talk about infinity, we can for sure talk about this stuff. =D

필승 코리아! Korea rocks in baseball, dude. 

All these comments remind me of why I dropped Philosophy 101 after the first class, as a 17-year-old freshman in college.  I was seeking truth and wisdom, not all that crap about "what does 'meaning' mean?"

@gpspacey - Actually, that's precisely what my 17-year-old self said to the Philosophy professor after telling him that I was dropping his class:

"Sir, may I ask you a personal question?"

"Uhhh....yes, go ahead."

"How can you JUSTIFY YOUR EXISTENCE as a professor of Philosophy?"

*silence*

@gpspacey - at this point, I don't know. It was probably from the source I was referencing. Will have to look into it. But I don't think all culture is normative, but norms do require culture (in particular, minded beings and intentionality as I'll argue in future blogs). That is a wholly other issue from what I was talking about, however. 

@gpspacey - The direct quote from the reference cited in that passage is,

"'Socialism is a protean concept', argues Gordon White. Any discussion of it in this context thus requires a clear distinction between the means and the ends of socialism, that is between 'paths' for getting there and 'end-states'. It is clear that for Marx and Engels socialism was an end-state and presupposed certain prior conditions in the socio-economic and political structure of societies and in their associated intellectual cultures and normative systems. There is no basis in classical Marxist theory for a society to be socialist without these necessary preconditions first being fulfilled. Socialism, in this tradition, is a specific societal form constituting an advanced (and for some a final) stage in a developmental sequence."

Norms are as much a part of our culture as anything else. The point was that, as the article says, to obtain the "end-state" of the communist society required certain conditions to have been met by the society. As the author points out, it is an issue of social progress or development, and it happens in stages through a Hegelian process, as I pointed out (i.e., thesis-antithesis-synthesis, or culture-counterculture-new culture). Thus, the conditions are just a way of saying "if these conditions are satisfied, then this society meets the defining characteristics of this state X." It wasn't merely an issue of political structure or economic methods. It also included more institutional factors like the intellectual and normative cultures. What are the education systems like, how do people learn, what kind of integrity is built into businesses, responsibility in politics and legal matters, etc. The idealism is that we expect a certain kind of highbrow character to this utopia at the "end-state" and we will identify it by its characteristics, including the associated "intellectual cultures and normative systems."