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.
Question | Answer | Comments | |
A priori knowledge: yes or no? | Other | I think the distinction between a priori and a posteriori is untenable on the version of naturalism I hold. | |
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism? | Lean toward: nominalism | | |
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective? | Other | I take a largely deflationary view on the subjective/objective distinction: Each is a (sometimes) useful abstraction from the other. | |
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no? | Lean toward: no | Meaning-as-use makes analyticity conventional and sensitive to context. | |
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism? | Accept both | I'm a pluralist about this issue (and many others): It is sometimes useful, and sometimes not, to factor in external factors while assessing justification. | |
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? | Accept an intermediate view | | |
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will? | Accept: compatibilism | | |
God: theism or atheism? | Accept an intermediate view | I lean towards some form of pantheism or panentheism | |
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism? | Accept an intermediate view | | |
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism? | Lean toward: contextualism | | |
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean? | Agnostic/undecided | | |
Logic: classical or non-classical? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Mental content: internalism or externalism? | Accept an intermediate view | Pragmatism in ascribing content, hence pluralism mediated by purposes for doing so. | |
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism? | Accept an intermediate view | | |
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism? | Accept an intermediate view | Lean toward neutral or dual-aspect monism | |
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism? | Accept both | | |
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes? | Accept: one box | Enjoy your small payoff, two-boxers! | |
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics? | Accept more than one | | |
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory? | Agnostic/undecided | | |
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view? | Accept: psychological view | | |
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism? | Agnostic/undecided | | |
Proper names: Fregean or Millian? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism? | Accept: scientific anti-realism | | |
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? | Accept: survival | Personal identity as memory, character, etc. | |
Time: A-theory or B-theory? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch? | Lean toward: don't switch | | |
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic? | Lean toward: deflationary | | |
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible? | Accept: conceivable but not metaphysically possible | | |