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? | Accept: yes | | |
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism? | Lean toward: Platonism | | |
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective? | Lean toward: objective | | |
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no? | Lean toward: yes | This depends on who I've recently read. If Quine, then No. If Chalmers, then Yes. | |
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism? | Accept: internalism | Internalist when I teach epistemology. When I'm out in the world doing errands, I'm an externalist. | |
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? | Lean toward: idealism | | |
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will? | Lean toward: libertarianism | | |
God: theism or atheism? | Accept: atheism | | |
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism? | Accept both | | |
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism? | Accept more than one | | |
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean? | Lean toward: non-Humean | | |
Logic: classical or non-classical? | Accept both |
Depends on what I need to do. Logics are like going to the grocery store and buying what you need. | |
Mental content: internalism or externalism? | Lean toward: internalism | | |
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism? | Accept: moral realism | | |
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism? | Accept: non-naturalism | | |
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism? | Accept: non-physicalism | On Tuesdays and Fridays. Other times I lean toward physicalism, except on Sundays, when I accept both (hey, I'm a dialetheist, after all) | |
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism? | Reject both | Strong moral realism (even tho' I'm a scientific anti-realist) | |
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism? | Accept both | | |
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes? | The question is too unclear to answer | It depends on how my stock portfolio is doing and whether on that day, I think ALL knowledge is defeasible or not (and even *how* defeasible) | |
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics? | Accept: deontology | | |
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory? | Lean toward: qualia theory | | |
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view? | Lean toward: further-fact view | | |
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism? | Lean toward: libertarianism | | |
Proper names: Fregean or Millian? | Accept: Millian | | |
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism? | Accept: scientific anti-realism | | |
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? | Lean toward: death | | |
Time: A-theory or B-theory? | Accept: B-theory | Well, *now* I do. | |
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch? | Accept: switch | Well, I'm with the neuroscientists here and Haidt as well. I really decide to let the "switch" part of my brain do the driving. | |
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic? | Reject all |
T(p) =/= p Why? B/c the LHS is from a different point of view than the RHS, hence they say different things. | |
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible? | Lean toward: conceivable but not metaphysically possible | Some of the most famous philosophers today are zombies (Dennett), but I always get hung up on the Zombie Paradox (Zombie twins are required (not just zombies in general), but how could my zombie twin possibly contemplate *its* consciousness?). I think this paradox is deadly . . . to zombies. | |