2009-12-14
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Effects of specialization
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Mohan MatthenUniversity of Toronto, St. George Campus
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By a quick count, the following positions led by more than 50% over the next most popular alternative:
a priori knowledge, analytic-synthetic distinction affirmed*, epistemic externalism, non-sceptical realism*, empiricism*, compatibilism, atheism, non-Humean laws of nature*, classical logic*, externalist mental content, moral realism*, naturalism, physicalism, moral cognitivism*, perceptual representationalism (assuming 'other' is not just one position)*, psychological view of personal identity (ditto)*, egalitarianism (ditto)*, scientific realism*, switch trolley line*, correspondence theory of truth*.
The positions marked * correspond with what I would take to be the "common-sense" or pre-reflective view -- that's 13/20 of the above. (Maybe another survey is needed to confirm my impression of what common-sense is.) Four more positions (compatibilism, atheism, naturalism, physicalism) express the zeitgeist -- they are not "common-sense", but they fit into a broadly scientific world-view.
That leaves, as positions in which philosophers are likely to differ from lay-people (at least those who have a broadly scientific world-view): a priori knowledge, epistemic externalism, and externalist mental content. Is this evidence that Gettier and Kripke-Putnam are the most influential philosophers of the second half of the 20th century?
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