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: yesYes, but with the proviso that I just believe whatever Tyler Burge tells me to believe. So although it's not an entirely unreflective stance ...
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Accept another alternativeThe question is not whether but how. For more detail, read all of my articles. And tell your friends I'm really smart.
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?Lean toward: objectiveAnd moreover, if you believe that the Doors are like really good, you are wrong.
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Accept: yes
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Accept: externalismSee apriority, above.
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Accept: non-skeptical realismThis one was easy. Except there's no good answer to the sceptic, and I don't understand idealism. But other than that, realism's gotta be right, yeah?
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Accept: compatibilismTo accept is not to have a freakin' clue how to defend, apparently.
God: theism or atheism?Accept: atheismI was raised Anglican which, of course, is a form of atheism. So my position is a deep-rooted bias from my upbringing, and I don't know of a good argument for or against the position.
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Lean toward: rationalism
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Agnostic/undecided
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Agnostic/undecided
Logic: classical or non-classical?Accept: non-classicalHaving spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about old-skool logic, I'm willing to accept: non-classical is where the money is.
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Accept: externalism
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Lean toward: moral realism
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Accept: non-naturalismMy position is Gadamerian. At least, I think it is: I've never read Gadamer. But I'm willing to accept any position the label of which rolls off the tongue so sweetly.
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Accept: non-physicalismIf the non-physicalist denies the identity of mental states and physical states while perhaps holding that the dependence is stronger than supervenience, then I would be proud to tell strangers on the sidewalk that I am an non-physicalist.
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Agnostic/undecided
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Accept: externalism
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Lean toward: virtue ethicsIt's not obvious to me that these are incompatible answers to some one question. I lean towards virtue ethics more out of familiarity than conviction. And because deontologists are no fun at parties.
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?Agnostic/undecided
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?Accept: biological view
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Insufficiently familiar with the issueFinally a question where I gave an honest answer.
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Lean toward: MillianIt depends on where we draw the semantics/pragmatics line; and the choice may be somewhat arbitrary. Is that a lean or a none of the above? Much of this quiz is tracking one's meta-multiple-choice-test views, as much as one's views. I lean towards leaning.
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Lean toward: scientific realismHaven't really thought about it, but this must be my position: see comment above.
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?Accept: deathBut, as a way of avoiding the 405 ...
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Accept: A-theoryThe benefits of eternalism are many and the cost is but one: it's wrong. Reflexive equilibrium works great as a philosophical method until it doesn't.
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?Accept: switchI would switch. Unless I was too busy shoving or exploding the obese. I doubt, however, that this intuition entails I ought to switch.
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Lean toward: deflationary
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Reject one, undecided between othersThere's a notion of conceivability that rules out conceivable but not metaphysically possible; that notion is the relevant one for the argument; but the argument begs the question in claiming that zombies are conceivable. Sorry, that one wasn't very funny.