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: yes
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Accept: nominalism
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?Lean toward: subjective
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Lean toward: yes
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Accept bothThere are different epistemic norms operative in different inquiries and practices. I don't see why internalist norms couldn't be operative in some contexts while externalist norms are operative in other contexts, depending on the purpose for which we are evaluating the justifiedness of a belief.
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Lean toward: idealism
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Accept: compatibilism
God: theism or atheism?Accept: atheism
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Accept both
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Lean toward: contextualismPropositional content varies depending on context, but I reject the idea that the truth conditions explain the meaning of normative claims like knowledge attributions.
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Lean toward: non-Humean
Logic: classical or non-classical?Lean toward: classical
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Accept bothProbably both kinds, but I reject the Myth of the Given.
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Accept: moral anti-realismImportant that issue of objectivity is orthogonal to issue of realism; different moral issues can be more or less objective.
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Accept: naturalismThe stuff is all natural, but that doesn't mean that our ways of speaking have to be analyzable in purely natural terms (whatever that means).
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Accept: physicalism
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Accept another alternativeMoral judgments are truth-apt and express moral beliefs, but these beliefs are, in part, irreducibly practical, i.e. essentially caught up in something other than representing reality.
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: internalism
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Accept: two boxes
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Accept more than one
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?Reject all
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Lean toward: communitarianism
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Lean toward: Millian
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Lean toward: scientific realism
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?There is no fact of the matter
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?Lean toward: switch
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Lean toward: deflationaryI don't think the concept of truth must be trivialized in order for there to be no substantive property of truth. Worried about the Liar.
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Insufficiently familiar with the issue