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: no | | |
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism? | Reject both | Frege refuted the denoattion theory within which this dispute makes sense. otherwise, the question is much broader. | |
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective? | Accept: objective | | |
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no? | Accept both | yes for formal languages, no for natural languages | |
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism? | Reject both | justification is the requirement of the traditional theory of rationality; the critical view of rationality rests on teh inability to offer final justifications. | |
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? | Accept an intermediate view | why did you omit commonsense, skeptical realism? | |
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will? | Accept: libertarianism | the fact is we do have choices, and teh more options teh better. all teh rest is open to critical debates | |
God: theism or atheism? | The question is too unclear to answer | it is unclear why the qustion matters except for the theory of divine providence. now this theory rests on the supposition of the soul going to heaven or to hell (or perhaps purgatory). this supposition is childish. | |
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism? | Reject both | the certainty which both these schools were discussing is impossible; knowkedge is conjectural | |
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism? | Accept: contextualism | all common knowledge claims are qualified by vague conditions such as unless force majeure interferes. | |
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean? | Accept: non-Humean | except that possibly we will never know them | |
Logic: classical or non-classical? | Accept: classical | | |
Mental content: internalism or externalism? | Accept both | | |
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism? | Accept: moral realism | | |
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism? | Accept: naturalism | | |
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism? | The question is too unclear to answer | the word is Neuraths' and it denotes his theory; few even know it, let alone assent to it. this question seemingly rests on ignorance. | |
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism? | Accept: cognitivism | | |
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism? | Accept both | this looks a logical dichotomy but it is a chilce between two theories so labeled and these come from the same stable. | |
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes? | Reject both | too stupid | |
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics? | The question is too unclear to answer | all of these options oerlook the fact that our morality has improved through history. think of the response of the international community to the holocaust. | |
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory? | Reject all | all these theories ignore the great improvemetn of the theory of perception, especially by j.j. gibson and edward s. reed. | |
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view? | Accept: biological view | again the choice is between two widespread theories both defunct. | |
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism? | Lean toward: egalitarianism | | |
Proper names: Fregean or Millian? | Accept another alternative | see leonard linsky, referring and nimrod bar-am, extentionalism. | |
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism? | Accept: scientific realism | classically scientific realism is a truth claim. popper declared it fregean: scientific theoreis are meaningful: they have truth values: they are either true or false. also, they are empirically testable. | |
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? | Accept: death | | |
Time: A-theory or B-theory? | Accept: B-theory | | |
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch? | Other | in pracatice the problem is context-dependent | |
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic? | Accept: correspondence | there are many corespondence theories, all having this or that merit. the commonsnese one takes the cake. | |
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible? | Accept: conceivable but not metaphysically possible | | |