Instructions

This is a survey of professional philosophers and others, concerning their views on some central philosophical questions. The survey has 30 main questions and some optional background questions. It should take only a few minutes to complete. The 30 questions will be asked to you one at a time, in no particular order. If you do not complete the survey immediately, we will remember your answers, and you can return to the survey later. However, your answers will not count unless you finish the survey before the closing time (December 1st at 7am New York time, noon London time, 11pm Sydney time).

The questions are phrased in a minimal way, in part because further clarification would usually be tendentious and would call for still further clarification in turn. Of course, one can always find ambiguity or other problems in such a question, so a number of "other" options are available. Nevertheless, we strongly encourage you to adopt the most natural interpretation of each question and to report an acceptance or a leaning toward one side or the other wherever possible.

Use of information

Your answers will be available to the small PhilPapers research team, and to a limited number of other researchers with whom we may share our data (with names stripped out) in the future. We will use the information you provide to calculate statistics concerning the body of answers to the survey as a whole. We may publicly release such statistics. At the end of the survey we will ask for your consent to use your answers in this way. We will also give you the option of allowing your answers to be publicly revealed by associating them with your PhilPapers profile, if you have one.

Important: Your answers will not count toward our statistics unless you consent to this explictly at the end of the survey on the Background & Consent page.

For further information regarding the purpose and methodology of the survey and regarding privacy issues, see our information page (opens in new window).

The survey is now closed. Results are here.


All rights reserved David Bourget and David Chalmers 2009.
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