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.

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QuestionAnswerComments
A priori knowledge: yes or no?Accept: noWe do make assumptions independently of experience, but they are not known to be correct, and are not necessarily justified, which doesn't mean they aren't objectively justified, or justifiable, but that they aren't certainly proved to be correct. I don't think there is any strait forward way to justified certainty in inference.
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Lean toward: nominalismI don't think if two things are white there is another thing, a whiteness, that they share. If instances are similar enough we may use a word that does not specify which is referred to; perhaps.
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?Lean toward: objectiveWittgenstein seems quite good on aesthetic values. As far as I can see, they are discussed as if they are objective, but that does not mean they are objective, but its also no good talking about them as if they are merely subjective, as if they were on the same level as liking a flavor of ice cream.
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Lean toward: noThe idea of the analytic is in trouble as far as I can see, but the Kantian idea of the synthetic is an unhelpful and loaded metaphysical notion that I don't accept.
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Accept bothKnowledge claims, or understanding anyway, is often based personally, internally, but there is a wider dimension that corrects for perceptual deformities.
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?OtherI count myself a realist, but I don't think there is any (traditional) necessity or certainty about the case, which may seem skeptical. But I do think there is capable of being apparent self sufficient necessity and certainty.
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Lean toward: no free willFreewill is like fairness in sports. There is no more natural attitude, which also seems fundamental to moral responsibility/the integrity of sport, but it falls to bits when you think about it. There is always a cause sufficient to make someone the winner at sport, and the more we understand motives the more they appear sufficient to account for any decision.--But if they don't, this doesn't help free will either.
God: theism or atheism?Lean toward: atheismI'm inclined to be superstitious, and also to believe in God, but I'm inclined to think this is just a natural psychological fact about me. Neither makes any sense, and I don't really believe in my belief in either, but can't help it- to some extent.
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Accept bothRationalism isn't logical deduction, and empiricism does not consist in noting what happens, but in trying to see how what is experience could itself bring about what occurs; and this often requires very close and detailed consideration of what is experienced.
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Insufficiently familiar with the issueI'm not a relativist, or a contextualist, I don't understand invariant ism. Knowledge claims may improve, but this does not mean they must be "relative"; similarly your aim may improve, but that does not mean the target is relative, or that it varies with context, or that your aim, or outcomes are invariant.
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Accept: non-HumeanLaws result from particular objectively worked out explanations, on the basis of realism. Usually, at least, they don't result from what has generally been found to be the case. Look at Archimedes, "On floating bodies" Proposition 4. This is the result of his 'postulate', not law, that in a fluid the part thrust the less is driven along by the part thrust the more.' But this isn't the result of a logical deduction from this postulate or known a-priori, nor is it synthetic a-priori. Given the postulate, it results from following this property around as it continues in a situation and what would occur on this basis, and so is sufficiently explained by the continuation of this property. .
Logic: classical or non-classical?OtherI'm inclined to think that logical deduction is a mistaken way of trying to reason. It seems like it should deliver certainty but can't. Meanings aren't platonic objects, and usage, both you're own and other peoples, isn't the sort of thing we can be justified in being certain about. Logical deduction, in isolation has no right to be as obvious and necessary as basic judgments of similarity and difference of matters of fact, in my opinion.
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Accept: internalismconscious states are internal in my book.
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Insufficiently familiar with the issueDon't know.
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Other"metaphilosophy"! How about "meta-metaphilosophy"? Where will it all end?--but I don't know much about it.
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Lean toward: physicalismI lean towards it, but I don't know how it could be possible.
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Agnostic/undecidedDon't know.
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Agnostic/undecidedDon't know
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?Lean toward: sense-datum theoryI think the best way of deciding what we experience is by trying to understand the world (probably).
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?Lean toward: psychological viewThere are thought experiments that leave the psychological view with difficulties, but I'm inclined to think that's just tough, at the moment.
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Skip
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Accept bothI doubt there has to be a general view applicable in all instances. Why would someone want a general view? Its not the same as generality in physical science, which comes about for objective reasons independent of humans. But I appreciate there is a sort of 'logic' or slippery slope towards the Millian view. There is a charm about it. But, so what?
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Lean toward: scientific realismI think most science works based on trying to work out the self sufficient nature of external reality.
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?Agnostic/undecidedIt may be there can be survival through multiple survival alternatives. And death with multiple survivals alternatives.
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Insufficiently familiar with the issueI'm in a quandary over this. From what I read it seemed that Taggart thought that if he shows time is impossible he's shown that change is impossible. By contrast Parminedes seemed to claim that change is impossible and so time is impossible. But if that is right both are given a reply by Lucretius who says that only atoms and the void exist. And drives the point home by saying time does not exist. There is no coming to be and passing away, because that would mean that these states that come to be and pass away exist, but only atoms and the void exist. what changes are the relations of what exists, but they aren't states of existence, but different relations between what does exist--atoms in the void. McTaggart SEEMS to think that if he has shown there is some absurdity in supposing time exists, and so has shown time does not exist, he has shown that CHANGE does not exist (from what I have so far gathered). But from an empiricle point of view, at least, change does not require time, on the contrary time is subsequent to and parasitic on change. As Hume said, in this case aptly, if there is no impression of time, we have no idea of time. What we have ideas of are the order of experienced changes, but that does not mean we know of such a thing as 'time' as something that needs to exist for changes to occur. On the contrary we can speak of time only after we have experience of changes and the order they occur; Which with Lucretius might be atoms continuing to construct different configurations in space. But perhaps I haven't read enough.
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?Lean toward: correspondenceI don't think there is such a thing as 'truth', on its own. So that is a bit deflationary. But I think what counts as true is decided by what we count as the nature of objective reality(although there may be other uses). So that seems like a bit of correspondence and a bit of epistemic. I'm not entirely sure.
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Accept: metaphysically possibleI should think there are people who some of the time act as people, but unconsciously. I remember being told not to go beyond a fence to my friends, when I was a boy. The next thing I remember was being the other side of the fence being told off, but I couldn't remember how I got there. I remember a young woman in a pub saying she sometimes was surprised o find herself chatting away, without previously being really conscious of what she'd been doing. So there ARE temporary mini zombies, I don't see why there shouldn't be full time ones. But (perhaps) more directly, I don't think that whether there are zombies or not is a conceptual matter. It concerns a matter of fact independently of what anyone thinks about it, just like objects that can exist when no-one ever imagined or thought or experiences their existing. So me and the young lady, may not have been zombies after all.