The problem with that is that people here aren’t familiar with many of the concepts. For example, I like Hume’s work on the philosophy of science, but I’m not a philosopher and I have no idea what it means for a position to be Humean or non-Humean. I think more people would answer without really understanding what they are answering than would take the time to figure out the questions.
I would argue that this was a problem for the professional philosophers who took this survey as well. A moral philosopher may have a passing knowledge of the philosophy of time, but not enough to defend the particular position she reports in the survey.
I agree. I think it would make more sense to just have discussions about whichever of the topics interested people, rather than having a fixed poll. If there were such a poll, it should be one designed to encourage ‘other’ views and frequent revisions of one’s view.
I might make something like this at some point, if only as a pedagogical tool or conversation-starter. At the moment, I have good introductions and links explaining all the PhilPapers questions up here.
Glancing at the survey, it looks like it contains a large amount of jargon that although very likely accessible to professional philosophers, most people here (myself included) would not know what most of the questions are asking, so I don’t think it would be practical to do this survey as is among LW.
We should give the same survey to LW.
The problem with that is that people here aren’t familiar with many of the concepts. For example, I like Hume’s work on the philosophy of science, but I’m not a philosopher and I have no idea what it means for a position to be Humean or non-Humean. I think more people would answer without really understanding what they are answering than would take the time to figure out the questions.
I would argue that this was a problem for the professional philosophers who took this survey as well. A moral philosopher may have a passing knowledge of the philosophy of time, but not enough to defend the particular position she reports in the survey.
Yes. It would be important to at least have respondents provide some self-assessment of how well they understand each question.
I agree. I think it would make more sense to just have discussions about whichever of the topics interested people, rather than having a fixed poll. If there were such a poll, it should be one designed to encourage ‘other’ views and frequent revisions of one’s view.
I might make something like this at some point, if only as a pedagogical tool or conversation-starter. At the moment, I have good introductions and links explaining all the PhilPapers questions up here.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/56q/how_would_you_respond_to_the_philpapers_what_are/
Glancing at the survey, it looks like it contains a large amount of jargon that although very likely accessible to professional philosophers, most people here (myself included) would not know what most of the questions are asking, so I don’t think it would be practical to do this survey as is among LW.
Right, but I meant in an accessible way that would let us analyze the data—e.g. a google survey.