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? | Lean toward: no | | |
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism? | Accept both | | |
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective? | Lean toward: subjective | | |
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no? | Lean toward: no | | |
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism? | Accept another alternative | | |
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? | Accept more than one | Idealism in some sense, non-skeptical realism in some sense. I'm not sure they have to conflict. Cf. Hegel. | |
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will? | Accept an intermediate view | Determinism in the scientific image, libertarianism in the manifest image, and neither image is fundamental or reducible to the other. Maybe that counts as compatibilism? | |
God: theism or atheism? | Lean toward: atheism | Atheism with respect to a metaphysically supernatural intelligent creator. Agnosticism/ignosticism for other variations on the theistic theme. Definitely not reductive materialism. | |
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism? | Accept both | `Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.' | |
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism? | The question is too unclear to answer | | |
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean? | Lean toward: non-Humean | In my limited understanding, Humeanism doesn't provide the resources to make sense of robust alethic modality. | |
Logic: classical or non-classical? | Lean toward: non-classical | Relevance logic | |
Mental content: internalism or externalism? | Lean toward: externalism | | |
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism? | Accept: moral realism | Well, normative realism anyway. I'm really not sure what to think about distinctly moral norms, if there are any such things. | |
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism? | Accept: non-naturalism | | |
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism? | Accept: non-physicalism | | |
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism? | Accept an intermediate view | | |
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism? | Accept another alternative | I reject the belief/desire dichotomy (assuming they're defined in terms of direction of fit).
I have to think about this more, but maybe something like sensibility theory. | |
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes? | Lean toward: one box | | |
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics? | Lean toward: virtue ethics | But I'm drifting toward some kind of second-personal, recognition-based view. | |
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory? | Lean toward: disjunctivism | | |
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view? | There is no fact of the matter | | |
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism? | Lean toward: communitarianism | Social anarchism, really. Not totally sure what flavor, but definitely *not* individualist. | |
Proper names: Fregean or Millian? | Lean toward: Fregean | | |
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism? | Accept another alternative | | |
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? | Lean toward: death | | |
Time: A-theory or B-theory? | There is no fact of the matter | | |
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch? | There is no fact of the matter | | |
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic? | Accept: deflationary | | |
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible? | The question is too unclear to answer | | |