Profile for Stephen Theron

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:

Question	Answer	Comments
A priori knowledge: yes or no?	Accept: yes	on at least one interpretation of the a priori
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?	Accept: Platonism	with the qualification that the forms are active
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?	The question is too unclear to answer	The two terms stand in dialectical relation
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?	Lean toward: no
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?	Insufficiently familiar with the issue	What is "episteme", this has first to be settled
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?	Accept: idealism	"absolute idealism is the dogma of philosophy" (Hegel)
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?	Accept: compatibilism
God: theism or atheism?	Accept: theism
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?	Accept: rationalism
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?	Lean toward: contextualism
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?	The question is too unclear to answer	Humean scepticism is well-founded and should lead dialectically to absolute idealism
Logic: classical or non-classical?	Lean toward: classical	Aristotelian logic and metaphysics as further developed by Hegel
Mental content: internalism or externalism?	Lean toward: internalism
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?	The question is too unclear to answer	am against moralism, for the virtues
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?	Accept both	the natural is itself rational
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?	Accept: non-physicalism
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?	The question is too unclear to answer	I deal in ethics, not morals
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?	The question is too unclear to answer	see above
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?	Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?	Accept: virtue ethics
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?	Other	I find the question unintelligible as stated
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?	Other	Once one rejects abstract individuality as defensible, putting "I" as universal of universals, the whole question gets "aufgehoben"
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?	Lean toward: libertarianism
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?	Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?	Reject both
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?	The question is too unclear to answer	death is not experienced
Time: A-theory or B-theory?	The question is too unclear to answer	in terms of McTaggart, I tend to accept his refutation of real time
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?	Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?	Accept another alternative	I do not have that alternative availably to thought just now
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?	Insufficiently familiar with the issue

Applied ethics	Epistemology	History of Western Philosophy	Meta-ethics	Metaphysics	Normative ethics
Philosophy of biology	Philosophy of language	Philosophy of mind	Philosophy of religion	Science Logic and Mathematics	More ...