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? | Accept: yes | | |
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism? | Accept: Platonism | | |
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective? | Accept: subjective | | |
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no? | Accept: yes | | |
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism? | Accept another alternative | I accept coherentism. | |
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? | Accept: non-skeptical realism | | |
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will? | Other | I believe that people have the ability to make choices between a small number of options. This is similar to what Libet meant by "free won't."
I consider this question to be the biggest challenge for those seeking consilience. | |
God: theism or atheism? | Accept another alternative | I accept henotheism. | |
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism? | Accept: rationalism | | |
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean? | Accept: Humean | I see the expression "laws of nature" as outdated; scientists do not speak of the law of relativity or the law of quantum physics.
I see "laws of nature" as the mainlines in the program(s) that compute the universe; exceptions can and do exist. These exceptions are very important when trying to develop a coherent view of reality. They are routinely "filtered out" by mainstream scientists as they contradict the invalid ontological assumption that nature is uniform. | |
Logic: classical or non-classical? | Accept: non-classical | | |
Mental content: internalism or externalism? | Accept: externalism | | |
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism? | Accept: moral realism | | |
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism? | Accept: non-naturalism | | |
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism? | Accept: non-physicalism | | |
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism? | Lean toward: non-cognitivism | | |
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics? | Accept: deontology | | |
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory? | Accept: representationalism | | |
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view? | Other | I follow Plato on this question. | |
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism? | Accept: libertarianism | | |
Proper names: Fregean or Millian? | Accept: Millian | | |
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism? | Accept: scientific anti-realism | I believe that digital ontology is key to understanding scientific data. I believe that the computation is external to the universe following Edward Fredkin. | |
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? | Accept: survival | | |
Time: A-theory or B-theory? | Accept: B-theory | The End of Time, by Julian Barbour, heavily influenced me in formulating my position on this topic. | |
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch? | Agnostic/undecided | This is a very difficult question for me; I hope that I never have to make such a decision myself. | |
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic? | Accept: correspondence | | |
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible? | There is no fact of the matter | | |