The authors do address your worries about the validity of the measure. However, let me address them in a more thoroughgoing fashion. Suppose that you are correct and answers to the questions do not reflect the views of the test subjects--philosophers. This sort of inaccuracy is not unfamiliar in research of this sort. Pain, for instance, might be operationally defined as “saying ouch”. Now of course “saying ouch” is not what we ordinarily mean by pain. Let’s give the misleading popular positions on arguments and theories that you hint at as operational definitions. Given that the questions went through the rounds of beta testing about wording,etc. via the responses of professional philosophers, there will be less difference between what the survey puts forth as a philosophical position and what the average philosopher will put forward as that position than there will be between “saying ouch” and what the average person takes to be pain. Importantly, experimental psychologists can say many useful things about pain responses to the average person, even though their operational definitions are so rudimentary and incomplete, or even misleading. Say the survey questions are similarly rudimentary, incomplete, or misleading. If the data supports received ways of thinking, i.e. suggests that the current ways of thinking are along traditional lines, then most likely philosophers are thinking in those ways. Saying for any particular question on the survey that ‘this n is the percentage of philosophers who hold a certain position’ only supports the existence of that position if n is high and we appeal to the expertise of those philosophers. Given that aesthetics is not a dominant subfield of philosophy, there will be less philosophers who are expert in that field. It is reasonable to think that the question on aesthetics did not receive expert attention when it went through beta testing.

If you are also worried about the correlations being used to support various lack luster explanations don’t be. Most of the correlations are so low that no person with a rudimentary understanding of statistics would use them to support a hypothesis. So take the following correlation: Metaphilosophy: naturalism  (Correlates with) Aesthetic value: subjective (at r = 0.257). Since a test subject who is a naturalist was a subjectivist about aesthetic value about 30 percent of the time, we would not hypothesize that naturalists are going to be subjectivists, or even that they are more likely to be. After all, given this statistic, isn’t there more than a 50 % chance that naturalist will be an objectivist about aesthetic value?  With an r of .257, about 6 percent of the variability in the first variable can be accounted for, or predicted by, knowing the scores on the second variable—whichever way you order the variables. Indeed, the authors deliberately avoid making hypotheses.  

Hi Nathaniel

I think you are missing the point of my comment.

First, I am not remotely interested in the statistical accuracy of the survey. In fact, I’m not interested in any aspect of the survey results. I’ve never bothered to read them and doubtless never shall. My concerns are much more basic.

Imagine a survey on “What do philosophers believe” conducted in the seventeenth century when Descartes was forced to hide himself away in Holland, or in fifth century Greece when Socrates was eventually forced to commit suicide. In your view, would a survey of the “majority beliefs" of philosophers have been useful for the future of philosophy in these instances? These are obvious and dramatic examples, but intellectual history – and not just in philosophy – is replete with such cases.

This doesn’t mean that the “maverick” is always right. That would be to fly to the other extreme. But it does mean that philosophy – like all areas of intellectual endeavour – must be constantly on its guard against dogmatism and complacency.

Now the survey in question reeked of intellectual complacency. The choice of questions and the way they were asked – i.e. the unquestioned assumptions they contained – pointed unmistakably to an implied view that the basic outlines of philosophy had been settled and that there was no longer any need to ask fundamental questions. (By the way, your own comments on aesthetics tend to suggest a similar state of mind).

To my mind, the survey was not a good sign for the future of philosophy. It may have been a useful PR exercise – and perhaps that was its real aim? – but it revealed a cast of mind that was, in my view, essentially anti-philosophical. 

DA

Your hypothetical examples are interesting. Since you explicitly don’t care at all about the accuracy of the survey results, let’s assume that the hypothetical surveys taken in their respective centuries are completely accurate. Since you cannot get an ought from an is, the purely factual information would not be normative. Hence, I don’t see how getting clear views of what philosophical views were most widely believed implies that some negative phenomena would have become further entrenched; the actual views may well have been less ridiculous than those submitted to by public persona. If you assume that they might have lied and the surveys would have entrenched the persona opinions, then your worry is about validity—anonymity is assured so surveys are not defeated by this type of confounding variable: the notion subjects might have that they have to be politically correct. Moreover, I’m sure historians of philosophy would be overjoyed if they could actually get their hands on such data, rather than relying on texts of questionable accuracy.  

You worry does seem to be that the survey does not accurately delineate areas, problems, and views in philosophy, and acceptance of the survey implicates a sterile and facile notion that the constantly moving targets, philosophical positions, etc. can be captured in pat stereotypes. Further, a survey of this sort is likely to have the adverse effect of entrenching these stereotypes. If this is true, then explanation of the validity of the survey is appropriate. Just as correlations involving “saying ouch” can give useful information about pain, so too can correlations using rough demarcation strategies give useful information about what philosophers believe.

Your charge of complacency seems at least partially motivated by supposing that philosophy is inaccurately represented and that complacency is responsible for this inaccuracy and will entrench it further if allowed to. If the questions and answers do not reflect what philosophers believe (philosophy is not accurately represented), then the survey is invalidated. Hence, my defense of the validity defeats the charge of inaccuracy—except, perhaps, the charge that the aesthetic questions and answers inaccurately represent. This should mitigate the force of your complacency charge.   

On entrenching stereotypes:

 If the survey is accurate, what is the complacency? Your view is that complacency is built into the survey. If this doesn’t affect the validity of the survey, then it is far from clear that your complaint has any more force than saying “Boo” at the survey. After all, if the survey is valid and the testers and subjects are complacent, then what philosophers believe is complacent. There is no a priori reason to think that the data representing their beliefs justifies them in anyway. Ad populum is a fallacy. I’m sure the community is not as complacent as to trade in fallacies. (If appeal to expertise is appropriate, I can see how “complacency” might become entrenched.)

I fail to see the force of your complacency charge if it is not based on assumptions about the validity of the survey. A reasonable complaint is that the survey doesn’t measure what it’s supposed to measure; namely, what philosophers actually believe. IF it is true that you are not remotely interested in the accuracy of the survey, this should not be your worry. If you mean to merely point out that philosophers are complacent, then not only does your complaint seem not to have much to do specifically with this survey, but it also seems apt to be defeated by pointing at work done in most any of the top philosophy journals.

Nate

Hi Nate

Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. Let me try again briefly.

Again, the question of accuracy has no bearing at all on my criticisms. Let the survey be 100% reliable, valid and accurate – a veritable paragon of a survey – and my criticisms are entirely unaffected.

The essential point I’m making is this: At best, a survey of this kind can only encourage conformist, middle-of -the-road thinking. Historically, philosophy has progressed (if that’s the right word) by the contributions of those who are not of the majority – and who have often been ignored, or even persecuted for their trouble. As I said, this does not mean that the maverick is always right. But it does mean that we should always be wary of “prevailing opinion”. And surveys of the kind we are talking about – trumpeted as “what philosophers believe” – can only help entrench prevailing opinion.

My objection in short is a basic one of principle, but I’ll just add a word on the nature of the questions asked. Although ostensibly telling us “what philosophers believe”, the questions were obviously designed by “analytic” philosophers for “analytic” philosophers. (For example, I don’t recall ever having read a continental philosopher wasting his time on that painfully juvenile “trolley problem”.) No doubt the survey designers could reply that continental philosophers can design their own if they like. But there again we simply see the tendency of a survey of this kind to entrench an existing state if affairs.

DA

The most interesting content in the survey consists in showing that philosophers are wrong or inaccurate in what they take to be the majority positions. Insofar as what the philosophers currently believe about what they believe is itself a majority position, the survey should have the result of changing a current state of affairs rather than entrenching it. (N.B. This comment shows that the accuracy of the survey pertains to your criticism because the survey should not be effective, if, for instance—and contrary to the fact portrayed in the survey—the majority is correct in believing what it takes the majority of philosophers to believe.) Since this result is both contrary to your position and very likely, your principle—that “at best, a survey of this kind can only encourage conformist, middle-of -the-road thinking.”—needs more support than gesturing at revolutionary progress. Not all progress is revolutionary, and some revolutionaries have been conformists—like Plato.

In every age, there does seem to be positions to which once must conform if one is not to jeopardize one’s livelihood, be ostracized, etc. Certainly, there have been marvelous, revolutionary individuals who have thrown caution to the winds. It is also possible that anonymous surveys taken in any age could have had the effect of showing that various “popular” beliefs were not so popular; hence, creating an atmosphere in which espousing “jeopardizing” beliefs is not contrary to self-interest. It’s possible that if such surveys were taken and made available, the mavericks would not have been “wild”, but geniuses arguing for positions akin to actual majority views. Not only are mavericks not always right, sometimes “independent thinker” is an oxymoron.  

(There are possible worlds where radical views are secretly, rationally, and widely held, and held silently until a survey is distributed and the radical private thoughts are made known. For something ironic, an instance would be the hypothetical situation in which a survey of enlightenment thinkers reveals that hard determinism is a very popular view. While this result would have been unlikely, this shows that some principle that this sort of surveys will at best entrench common views is likewise unlikely. It also shows to be false the principle that such surveys can only encourage middle-of-the-road thinking.)   

One can be wary of popularity without assuming that indication of popularity entrenches popularity.

Since you granted that the survey can be 100% accurate, let’s assume the implication: The views of the test subjects are represented with 100% accuracy. Since the test subjects were analytic philosophers, I am confused by your point about the unsuitability of the survey to represent the views of continental philosophers. What should one make of a person presuming to point out that a study using the expression “saying ouch” will entrench current theories about pain and inhibit progress because it is not reliable indicator of what people are talking about when they use the expression “awe, that feels good” ?  The inclination is to disregard. A study about pain is not about all sensations. An irrelevant statement: Continental philosophers are philosophers too, and since this survey is not about them, it will tend to underrepresent or overly restrict what philosophers believe. The study is not about all philosophers.

Hi Nate

You write: You write: “The most interesting content in the survey consists in showing that philosophers are wrong or inaccurate in what they take to be the majority positions. Insofar as what the philosophers currently believe about what they believe is itself a majority position, the survey should have the result of changing a current state of affairs rather than entrenching it.”

Yes, but merely by changing current views about what most philosophers believe. How important is that? How important is it that Fred Nurk should think that 60% of philosophers are theists and 40% atheists (or whatever the figures were) rather than the reverse? What matters in philosophy – and the only thing that has ever mattered – is the quality of Fred’s arguments, whether they are in the majority or a tiny minority – even a minority of one. A pernicious effect of surveys of the kind we are discussing is that they encourage people to think that majorities or minorities matter. They encourage “group think” – the bane of philosophy.

The unfortunate state of mind in question is wonderfully illustrated by your statement: “In every age, there does seem to be positions to which once must conform if one is not to jeopardize one’s livelihood, be ostracized, etc.” Indeed, perhaps this is true (especially at the moment, I would say); but it’s something to be deeply regretted, is it not? Not something to be meekly accepted and, still less, something to be subtly reinforced by surveys telling us what directions the sheep happen to be heading at the moment.

DA

What does the term “belief” mean today? We use it in a banal, pragmatic way: we believe X so we do X. But the idea of “a belief” in any profound sense is surely beyond us at present. We have many more questions than answers and everything we say we believe is at best provisional. Fundamentalists are the only ones today who “believe” anything and they can only do so because they have committed intellectual suicide.

Western culture – which is nearly everyone now – is essentially agnostic. The first agnostic culture in world history (a dubious honour…)

DA

‘Twas ever thus, I imagine. “We learn by experience” etc.

But the situation is more acute for us than at any time in the past because we also lack any fundamental belief. For a Christian (for example) in the year 1200, the world and man’s place in it was clear and beyond doubt. The world was the “here below” where we needed to be on constant guard against the devil’s wiles while awaiting the judgement that would consign us to heaven or to hell.

Today we have no idea at all about the world and man’s place in it. We only have questions. Some people, including many philosophers, seem to live in the hope that science will reveal all, but that strikes me as a delusion. Paraphrasing Albert Camus on this issue, if scientists explained the universe down to the very last atom, the essential question – the significance of man – would still remain unanswered.

Sorry, not a very cheery comment.

DA

At a fundamental level, I doubt if life was any simpler in the 13th century. Certainly it was much harsher.  But there was a fundamental faith that made sense of it all and gave man hope, which we do not have now.  The best modern philosophy seems to be able to muster is a kind of abstract, anaemic belief in “theism” (which was one of the options on the survey, if I recall). Did anyone ever die for theism, I wonder?  Hard to imagine, is it not? How would one write the epitaph? What about: "Gone to the divine clock-maker. Sorely missed." 

DA

Hi Alex

Re: Allow me to disagree to the assume. Is the predicate "..before there was a fundamental faith that we don't have now.." Isn't it a bit too bold for a universal?

No I don’t think it’s too bold. There are doubtless still some people who have a firm and deep religious faith (I exclude those who mistake rabid fanaticism for faith) but, on the whole, Western and Westernised cultures today all strike me as essentially agnostic. Religion has an occasional ceremonial value but little more.  And the intellectual construct philosophers call “theism” seems to me to have little or nothing to do with religious belief.

Which leaves most of us, as I say, without any fundamental belief – an unprecedented state of affairs. As André Malraux (also an agnostic) points out, we are the first civilization in human history without an understanding of man’s significance. Or to put that another way, we can send people to the moon but we can’t build a temple or a tomb.

DA

Hi Albert

I was the one asked: 'did anyone ever die for theism?'

By theism I mean the very intellectualised notion of god that emerged in the eighteenth century (similar to deism), which still seems to claim some adherents in the world of modern philosophy.

My point is that beliefs of this kind have very little to do with genuine religious belief which, it seems to me (I am agnostic), is something deeply felt (as you suggest) not just a matter of the intellect.

I fully agree that many people have died for their religious beliefs – and not just for Christian beliefs of course. But I would be very surprised if anyone died for the pallid, anaemic god of theism or deism.

DA