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? | Lean toward: Platonism | | |
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective? | Accept both | Obviously, there are subjective properties of aesthetic valuation. However, unlike in ethics, I think subjective aesthetic properties matter a lot. Anyway, the real interesting question is whether there exist any objective aesthetic properties as well. Technically, I strongly lean towards "yes, there are objective aesthetic properties" but there wasn't an option for "accept subjective and lean toward objective." | |
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no? | Accept: yes | | |
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism? | Lean toward: internalism | Strongly lean | |
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? | Accept: non-skeptical realism | | |
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will? | Lean toward: libertarianism | | |
God: theism or atheism? | Agnostic/undecided | But lean ever so slightly towards an extremely non-specific theism. That is, I think it's likely that a rational agent was involved in the creation of the universe in some respect, but if indeed such a being exists, I know nothing about it. How confident am I in this? It's a guess. Maybe 0-1% confident. | |
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism? | Lean toward: rationalism | Strongly lean | |
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Logic: classical or non-classical? | Accept: classical | | |
Mental content: internalism or externalism? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism? | Accept: moral realism | | |
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism? | Lean toward: non-physicalism | | |
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? | Agnostic/undecided | | |
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics? | Accept an intermediate view | Really, I intuitively lean towards an intermediate view, but this is a weak leaning. I don't have sufficient practical knowledge in the area, but Parfit's notion of climbing three sides of the same mountain sounds appealing (whatever he really means in the minute details, I don't know, as I haven't yet read the book). | |
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: biological view | Along the lines of Eric T. Olson's work. But I am very, very open to some particular further-fact view being correct!
I broadly consider the psychological view to be mostly implausible. However, certain specific versions of the psychological view, especially in the vein of Barry Dainton's notion of phenomenal continuity, are more appealing to me than the standard psychological view. | |
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism? | Lean toward: libertarianism | Very strongly lean | |
Proper names: Fregean or Millian? | Insufficiently familiar with the issue | | |
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism? | Accept: scientific realism | | |
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? | Lean toward: death | Strongly lean | |
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? | Accept: 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 | But this is intuitive. I don't have an argument for why it would be metaphysically impossible. | |