My philosophical views

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.

See also:

QuestionAnswerComments
A priori knowledge: yes or no?Accept: yes
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Accept: nominalism
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?The question is too unclear to answerFor aesthetic status A, I'd give criteria for having A that is not sensitive to the stance of any subject. So it's not subjectivist in that sense. But I'd be an expressivist about aesthetic discourse, I suppose.
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Accept: yesI think there are truths that fall out of the characters/intensions of the expressions we use. E.g., I am here now. So I'm Kaplanian about this.
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Accept: internalism
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Accept: non-skeptical realism
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Lean toward: compatibilism
God: theism or atheism?Accept: atheism
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Lean toward: empiricismThe distinction is obscure to me if it is not the a priori - a posteriori distinction. I do think there is a priori knowledge.
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Agnostic/undecided
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Logic: classical or non-classical?Lean toward: non-classicalI like supervaluation views for handling indeterminate truth values in vague discourse, but that's minimally non-classical. I think something else must be done about the boundarylessness issue.
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Accept both
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Accept: moral anti-realism
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Accept: naturalismI think naturalism is meant to include irreducibly phenomenal properties.
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Lean toward: non-physicalism
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Accept bothBut more non-cognitivism than cognitivism
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Accept an intermediate viewMoral judgments typically but not invariantly motivate and this needs to be explained.
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Lean toward: two boxes
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Lean toward: deontologyI think reasons are the basic normative unit, and this seems a bit deontological to me. But it's probably not one of the things people have in mind by 'deontology.'
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: egalitarianism
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Lean toward: FregeanI think the sense of proper names tell us what external relations between word and object fix the referent.
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?Accept: switch
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Lean toward: deflationaryI like the T-schema. When expressions have descriptive semantics, the T-schema is satisfied by (indirect, Horgan-type) correspondence.
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Lean toward: metaphysically possible