The answers shown here are not necessarily the same provided as part of the 2009 PhilPapers Survey. These answers can be updated at any time.
Question | Answer | Comments | |
A priori knowledge: yes or no? | Agnostic/undecided | | |
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism? | Agnostic/undecided | | |
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective? | The question is too unclear to answer | For I would need to know what *exactly* is meant with subjective/objective here. | |
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no? | Agnostic/undecided | | |
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? | Lean toward: non-skeptical realism | | |
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will? | Accept: compatibilism | | |
God: theism or atheism? | Accept: atheism | However, many self-professed atheists dismiss the theist alternatives too easily. | |
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism? | Reject both | | |
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism? | Lean toward: invariantism | | |
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean? | Lean toward: Humean | But if you include so-called 'psychological laws' under this heading, I reject both. | |
Logic: classical or non-classical? | The question is too unclear to answer | It depends on what you want to do with logic. Isn't that the upshot of the last 100 years or so of proliferation of non-classical systems? | |
Mental content: internalism or externalism? | Lean toward: externalism | | |
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism? | Lean toward: moral realism | Really hard as I have sympathies with certain constructivist views. I typically list those under 'realism', but I know most Ozzie types tend to dismiss constructivism altogether as a meta-ethical view.
Furthermore, I recently have come to believe that moral realism makes sense for evaluative properties; that constructivism makes sense for deontic properties; and that anti-realism makes sense for some moral statements. But if I have to choose: my realist inclinations are strongest. | |
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism? | Accept: naturalism | | |
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism? | Accept: physicalism | Having read too much Dennett.... | |
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism? | Accept: cognitivism | Some lingering doubts, however,.... More acceptance that leaning though | |
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism? | Lean toward: externalism | Just because I used to hang out with externalist types... | |
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes? | Lean toward: one box | Against my better judgment. I know it is a silly position to hold, and yet... and yet...
Official answer is that this is connected to my views about constructivism in practical reason. | |
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics? | Accept an intermediate view | The three alternatives are straw-men of plausible normative ethical theories. A plausible theory will have elements of all three. Furthermore, *any* normative ethical theory will have elements of virtue, an axiology and deontic elements. Finally, you are comparing apples and pears as both consequentialism and deontology are typically characterized by the fact that they are very explicit about obligation, whereas this is very unclear with traditional virtue ethics. | |
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view? | Agnostic/undecided | | |
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism? | Accept another alternative | | |
Proper names: Fregean or Millian? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism? | Lean toward: scientific realism | | |
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? | Agnostic/undecided | | |
Time: A-theory or B-theory? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch? | Lean toward: switch | This is not the real point about the Trolley problem in my opinion. Many people, including philosophers hold all kinds of contrasting and even inconsistent views on this. I sincerely hope you will not use this as a way to discriminate between those who have consequentialist leanings and those who do not. | |
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic? | Agnostic/undecided | | |
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible? | Agnostic/undecided | | |