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?Accept: yesEvery thing depends on what one means by 'knowledge'
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Accept: nominalism
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?The question is too unclear to answer
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Accept: yes- for what it's worth
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Skip
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Skip
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Accept: compatibilism
God: theism or atheism?Accept: atheism
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Lean toward: empiricism
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Skip
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Accept: Humean
Logic: classical or non-classical?Skip
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Accept bothThis familiar dichotomy fails to identify the subject, and a pat answer can only lead to confusion
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Accept bothmorality MUST be "real" but it MUST engage the soul.
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Skip
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?The question is too unclear to answerA short comment is impossible!
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Accept bothOnce again: ethics is practical. It can't be see unless it is accessible to cognition; nor can it be unless it motivates.
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Accept: internalismThere can't be an "external motivation" to BE moral, but there can be to engage in behavior that is approved by morality
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Skip
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?The question is too unclear to answerSee my 1965 paper ("Utilitarianism and Formalism", republished in my Respecting Persons in Theory oand Practice) showing why the dichotomy is, again, unacceptable
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?Skip
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?Skip
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Accept: libertarianismSee my books on the matter, such as The Libertarian Idea
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Lean toward: Millian
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Skip
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?Lean toward: survival
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Skip
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?Lean toward: switchtough one!
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Accept: correspondence
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Skip