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 | Platonism is not only the default way of thinking about numbers and other abstracta in mathematics, it's also the most consistent with scientific realism. In science, we hold many unobservable entities to be real because it is necessary for good scientific theory-- mathematical entities (numbers, sets, etc.) are just another one of those unobservable entities. Additionally, nominalist accounts of explaining mathematics do not do as well or in some accounts fail miserably. | |
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective? | Lean toward: objective | | |
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no? | Accept: yes | | |
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism? | Lean toward: externalism | | |
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? | Accept: non-skeptical realism | | |
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will? | Lean toward: compatibilism | I'm more of a compatibilist, but I can see how the case could be made for hard determinism or libertarianism. The lack of a good deterministic explanation for the evolution and role of consciousness is, I think, a point towards some form of libertarian/indeterministic free will, but I think some deflationary view of free will can still be compatible with a completely deterministic world. Hard determinism could be supported by pointing out that the line between outright coercion and mere external influence isn't so sharp and that because of this, none of our actions are really made by pure choice. | |
God: theism or atheism? | Other | | |
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism? | Lean toward: rationalism | | |
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean? | Lean toward: non-Humean | | |
Logic: classical or non-classical? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Mental content: internalism or externalism? | Agnostic/undecided | Externalism about mental content has for long been the dominant view and has some good arguments in favor of it, but many of the arguments for it seem to depend on a lot of intuitions that may be the result of cultural influence. | |
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism? | Accept: moral realism | | |
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism? | Lean toward: non-naturalism | At best, I would subscribe to a weak naturalism, but as a platonist and moral non-naturalist, I think that reality has non-natural aspects. | |
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism? | Accept: 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? | Agnostic/undecided | | |
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view? | Lean toward: psychological view | | |
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | Need to study political philosophy more to give an informed view. | |
Proper names: Fregean or Millian? | Lean toward: Fregean | | |
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism? | Lean toward: scientific realism | | |
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | A reading of the thought experiment has left me with the impression that the result would be death, but I probably need to read more on the matter. | |
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? | Agnostic/undecided | Not entirely sure. | |
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic? | Lean toward: correspondence | | |
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible? | Lean toward: conceivable but not metaphysically possible | | |