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?Lean toward: Platonism
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?Lean toward: objective
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Accept an intermediate view
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: externalism
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Lean toward: non-skeptical realism
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Lean toward: libertarianismWhile I hold that the agent qua bounded self is an illusion, I'm sympathetic to idea that the mind harbours a genuine principle of freedom. This of course needs much qualification...
God: theism or atheism?Accept: atheism
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Lean toward: empiricismThe distinction is not a clear-cut one. But I think that the most interesting knowledge is empirically based.
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Lean toward: relativismI think that the quality of knowledge can vary.
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?Lean toward: externalism
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Lean toward: moral realism
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?The question is too unclear to answerIf this question is asking whether philosophy can be reduced to scientific pursuit, then I would say 'no'.
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Agnostic/undecidedIt it hard to really understand this contrast when not knowing what physical matter ultimately comes down to...
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Accept: cognitivism
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: internalismWeak internalism.
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Lean toward: virtue ethicsI do not think that VE offers a complete normative ethical theory.
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?Lean toward: representationalism
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?Accept: psychological viewI think that self-identity over time is an illusion, but that the sense of being an identical self over time is psychologically based.
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Lean toward: egalitarianism
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Lean toward: Fregean
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Agnostic/undecided
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?Lean toward: survivalInsofar as the sense of self is preserved, there will be survival. But if there's no actual self, then how can it be said to survive or die?
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Reject bothSemantically, I think time requires A concepts, but I also now think that time is an illusion. A-theory and B-theory are realist theories of time, hence I reject both.
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: correspondence
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Lean toward: conceivable but not metaphysically possible