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?Lean toward: no
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Accept: nominalism
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?Accept: subjective
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Lean toward: yes
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: externalism
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Accept: skepticism
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Lean toward: no free willI accept causal determinism, and define "freedom" as the absence of 'external' constraint. For me, 'free' deliberation, therefore, is a fully determined process. Thus I do not deliberate because I am 'free', but feel free because I am unaware of the determinism of my deliberation. Every decision I make is, under the prevailing circumstances, the only decision I can make, although I myself cannot predict it, or know all the circumstances. To say I am free is to say I am not externally constrained, it is not to contradict my own internal, causal determinism. I am free to act as I choose, but not free to choose as I choose. When I say I am 'free', all I can mean is that I am not externally constrained.
God: theism or atheism?Accept: atheism
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Accept an intermediate viewSome knowledge is acquired empirically, while other knowledge is acquired rationally. Yet other knowledge is a kind of hybrid: synthesised from experience. The question also swings on just what is meant by "knowledge".
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Accept: contextualism
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Lean toward: Humean
Logic: classical or non-classical?Lean toward: classical
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: internalism
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Accept: moral anti-realism
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Accept: naturalism
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Accept: 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: two boxes
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Accept: consequentialism
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?Lean toward: sense-datum theory
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Lean toward: libertarianism
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Lean toward: scientific realism
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?Lean toward: survival
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Lean toward: A-theory
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?Lean toward: switch
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Accept: correspondence
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Lean toward: metaphysically possible