I actually answered the survey and I think my responses are public somewhere. I’ll have to see after if this matches up.
A priori knowledge: yes or no? Agnostic
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism? Accept an intermediate view
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective? Accept an intermediate view
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no? Agnostic
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism? Accept another alternative
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? Lean towards non-skeptical realism
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will? Accept compatibilism
God: theism or atheism? Accept Atheism
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism? Accept both
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism? Lean towards contextualism
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean? Agnostic
Logic: classical or non-classical? There is no fact of the matter
Mental content: internalism or externalism? Agnostic
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism? Accept moral realism
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism? Accept naturalism
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism? Accept physicalism
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism? Accept both
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism? Accept both
Newcomb’s problem: one box or two boxes? Accept one box
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics? Accept virtue ethics
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? Agnostic
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism? Lean towards libertarianism
Proper names: Fregean or Millian? Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism? Accept an intermediate view
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? Agnostic
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 another alternative
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic? Accept deflationary
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible? Accept inconceivable
===
And… which of the following philosophers do you identify with?
Aquinas
Aristotle
Nietzsche
I would have written in Dennett and Emerson were there an option.
Let’s see… I’ll try to answer as I would have when I was taking this, for consistency...
Abstract objects: Aristotelianism. Forms are always instantiated, but are not completely arbitrary categories as nominalism would suggest.
Aesthetic value: subject-sensitive objectivism. There is a fact about what you find beautiful regardless of your say-so, but beauty depends on the observer.
Epistemic justification: subject-sensitive invariantism / contextualism: There is an external fact about whether a belief is justified, but it depends upon the context of the question and/or the person being asked, so the distinction is flawed. (see “knowledge claims”)
Science: Models necessarily leave out facets of reality, and science simply aims to provide good models, so science will never fully describe reality by design. Thus, it does not achieve realism. However, the models are not arbitrary and do refer to reality.
Trolley problem: The question about what one ought to do is ill-formed. Humans are not designed to make that sort of decision, and so an ethics that answers trolley problem questions will be ill-suited to everyday use. Thus, what one should do is be virtuous in all one’s activities, and I expect such a person would still freeze and panic if faced with the trolley problem. Or to paraphrase one philosopher’s take on it, if you find the answer to the trolley problem easily, then there’s something wrong with you.
There you go. I’m just guessing on what I was thinking on “science” and a bit on some of the others. I’d have to rethink the whole thing to answer it again—I haven’t been running in philosophy circles for a while.
I actually answered the survey and I think my responses are public somewhere. I’ll have to see after if this matches up.
A priori knowledge: yes or no? Agnostic
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism? Accept an intermediate view
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective? Accept an intermediate view
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no? Agnostic
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism? Accept another alternative
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? Lean towards non-skeptical realism
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will? Accept compatibilism
God: theism or atheism? Accept Atheism
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism? Accept both
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism? Lean towards contextualism
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean? Agnostic
Logic: classical or non-classical? There is no fact of the matter
Mental content: internalism or externalism? Agnostic
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism? Accept moral realism
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism? Accept naturalism
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism? Accept physicalism
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism? Accept both
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism? Accept both
Newcomb’s problem: one box or two boxes? Accept one box
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics? Accept virtue ethics
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? Agnostic
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism? Lean towards libertarianism
Proper names: Fregean or Millian? Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism? Accept an intermediate view
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? Agnostic
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 another alternative
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic? Accept deflationary
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible? Accept inconceivable
===
And… which of the following philosophers do you identify with?
Aquinas Aristotle Nietzsche
I would have written in Dennett and Emerson were there an option.
I’d like to know your intermediate views, if you ever have time.
Let’s see… I’ll try to answer as I would have when I was taking this, for consistency...
Abstract objects: Aristotelianism. Forms are always instantiated, but are not completely arbitrary categories as nominalism would suggest.
Aesthetic value: subject-sensitive objectivism. There is a fact about what you find beautiful regardless of your say-so, but beauty depends on the observer.
Epistemic justification: subject-sensitive invariantism / contextualism: There is an external fact about whether a belief is justified, but it depends upon the context of the question and/or the person being asked, so the distinction is flawed. (see “knowledge claims”)
Science: Models necessarily leave out facets of reality, and science simply aims to provide good models, so science will never fully describe reality by design. Thus, it does not achieve realism. However, the models are not arbitrary and do refer to reality.
Trolley problem: The question about what one ought to do is ill-formed. Humans are not designed to make that sort of decision, and so an ethics that answers trolley problem questions will be ill-suited to everyday use. Thus, what one should do is be virtuous in all one’s activities, and I expect such a person would still freeze and panic if faced with the trolley problem. Or to paraphrase one philosopher’s take on it, if you find the answer to the trolley problem easily, then there’s something wrong with you.
There you go. I’m just guessing on what I was thinking on “science” and a bit on some of the others. I’d have to rethink the whole thing to answer it again—I haven’t been running in philosophy circles for a while.