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: noPerhaps an evolved reflex or species specific instinctive response might qualify. From babyhood we build a model evolved from all our experiences, including language.
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Reject bothThe physical sound emitted by one unique semantic experience altered by environmental noise is heard by another uniquely different semantic experience in differing motivational contexts.
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?Skip
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Skip
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Skip
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Reject allThe brain is an organ that locates its experiences elsewhere. All we perceive as being "out there" is a projected prediction of what we expect - projected as taking place outside the brain.
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Accept another alternativeBoth and neither. See Time: The 4D perspective describes past and future with timeless syntax. Consciousness experiences a sense of free choice, because it does not access the future. As both views are models neither confirmed nor dis-confirmed, like an independent axiom, we are free to choose either or neither without introducing a contradiction.
God: theism or atheism?Reject bothBertrand Russell said it best, among the learned, agnostic, among the common, atheist. See "Doubt and Faith" - http://xenodochy.org/philosophy/dab.html
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Reject bothEach of us "grows" a unique semantic environment in our brain that predicts what we will experience next, to varying degrees of effectiveness (measured by lack of surprise individually).
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Skip
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Skip
Logic: classical or non-classical?Accept bothBrain modeling by evolutionary epistemology.
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Skip
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Skip
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Skip
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Skip
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?There is no fact of the matter
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Skip
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Skip
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Skip
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?Otherhttp://xenodochy.org/article/mathesis.html
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?The question is too unclear to answer
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Skip
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?There is no fact of the matter
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?OtherI am working on the basis of a not-yet-dis-confirmed model, subject to update as anomalous data is acquired. The brain operates on the basis of evolutionary epistemology, projecting what it predicts. Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn.
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?There is no fact of the matterIn principle, death, but the premiss violates what we currently model as physically possible.
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Accept bothA-time is riding the roller coaster. B-time is the roller coaster ride film in the can. Consciousness is differentiating B-time.
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?Skip
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Accept another alternativeEach brain grows a its own unique network instantiated semantic model of its experiences and projects its predicted experiences externally. Truth is a context sensitive response-prediction, so it depends on with whom I'm transaction in what context. Model theory informs correspondence, science (evolution) informs epistemic, and Religion informs deflationary.
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?SkipWe're all Zombies