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? | Lean toward: yes | Depends on one's theory of what we can get from experience. If it's spare, then I think there is indeed a priori knowledge. On the other hand, if we have a richer notion of experience, maybe not. | |
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism? | Accept: nominalism | Supposing that term "object" has some meaning to the effect of applying only to those things that can be objectively individuated by spatio-temporal location, the term "abstract object" is an oxymoron. | |
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective? | Accept: objective | Since defenses of moral objectivism would, I suppose, apply in a similar manner to any value-laden judgments, including aesthetic judgments, I don't see why if I accept the former, I shouldn't accept the latter, even though, I feel, as a matter of "intuition," that moral objectivism has more warrant. I fear, however, that any objections to defenses of the objectivity of aesthetic value would also degrade defenses of moral objectivism. Since I can't find a rational basis for my intuition that there is a difference between the two, prudence requires that I accept aesthetic objectivism. Though, I admit, I haven't been keeping up with the literature on this topic. | |
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no? | Accept: yes | | |
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism? | Agnostic/undecided | | |
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? | Lean toward: non-skeptical realism | | |
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will? | Lean toward: libertarianism | | |
God: theism or atheism? | Lean toward: atheism | | |
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism? | Agnostic/undecided | See my answer to (1) | |
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism? | Accept: invariantism | | |
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Logic: classical or non-classical? | Lean toward: non-classical | | |
Mental content: internalism or externalism? | Accept an intermediate view | In this case, I do feel that the debate has taken on the characteristics of typical debates between religious extremists. Also, I don't see why Burge's article on mental content didn't conclusively muddy the waters here. | |
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism? | Accept: moral realism | | |
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism? | Accept: non-naturalism | Admittedly, I am uncertain about what the contrast between these two positions is supposed to be. However, if being a naturalist means something like what Quine suggests in "Epistemology Naturalized," then I suppose we should all quit our jobs and take up scientific investigation, whatever that means. At least Rorty, having come to the conclusion that traditional philosophy is hopelessly confused, put his money where his mouth was and left. | |
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism? | Lean toward: non-physicalism | | |
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism? | Lean toward: cognitivism | | |
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism? | Lean toward: internalism | | |
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes? | Accept: one box | If the predictor is infallible and knows what will happen, it also knows what you will be thinking, your decision process and cetera. So one box is the right answer. | |
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics? | Accept: deontology | | |
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory? | Accept: disjunctivism | | |
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view? | Accept another alternative | While I accept Parfit's conclusion that identity is not what matters in survival, I do not reject it based on considerations about fission. | |
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism? | Other | If we're talking which theory is morally ideal here, then I don't see how one could fail to accept some form of egalitarianism as an over-arching value, given some plausible definition of "equality." The real question is which policies would have the consequence of producing that equality, and these might not necessarily directly reflect our moral commitment to equality. I honestly don't know how to assess this question given my training. | |
Proper names: Fregean or Millian? | Accept another alternative | A shameless plug: see my recent paper in AJP on the topic :) | |
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism? | Other | | |
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? | Accept: survival | | |
Time: A-theory or B-theory? | Accept: A-theory | | |
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch? | Accept: switch | On pain of inconsistency when considering other similar cases that don't require my active participation. The killing/letting die distinction doesn't do it for me. | |
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic? | Accept: correspondence | | |
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible? | Agnostic/undecided | Intuitively, I suppose they *must* be conceivable, though I am uncertain what counts as conceivable, and I suppose I might be a skeptic about this. | |