Today I want to try to give my personal answers to the original PhilPapers Survey questions. These are a list of questions on philosophical issues aimed at understanding the philosophical views of professional philosophers. The survey was carried out in November 2009 and was taken by 3226 respondents.
I’m obviously not a professional philosopher, but I wanted to take the survey for two main reasons:
Think about these questions, and record my answers so that I can look back at them and see what my beliefs were at a certain date.
Learn about what the most important philosophical issues today (according to philosophers).
Writing this post took a while because understanding and answering many of the questions required a little bit of reading. I wrote my own brief and tentative explanations to each of the topics and added links to references that I used (note that I did not read all references in full and it is quite likely that my understanding isn’t always correct).
Unfortunately, the questions were more technical than I expected. Overall, I’m not sure that my answers provide a good picture of my beliefs, especially since my answers are typically very short. But several questions gave me ideas about topics to develop and write about in future.
Note: After I started writing this post, results for a new version of PhilPapers Survey were published. The new survey was carried out in 2020. It includes many of the same questions that appeared in the 2009 version, but also some new ones. I decided to stick to the original questions. Perhaps in a few years I can go back and take the new one (or not).
The valid answers are:
Explanation: “A priori knowledge” is knowledge that is independent of experience. Typical examples include mathematical statements and logical tautologies. However, one can argue that even logical statements are never actually true or false on their own, since they depend on conventions that are decided in the physical world. See also the question on “analytic-synthetic distinction” below. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori_and_a_posteriori https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/apriori/
My answer: No. Mathematical statements are “true” because of the way we experience reality (however I think this this also holds for everything else that is “true,” since I am skeptic about objective reality, see question 6).
PhilPapers most voted: Yes (71.1%).
Explanation: Nominalism is the philosophical view that abstract objects and universals (the “qualities” of objects) do actually not “exist.” Instead, Plato famously believed that the world of universals or “forms” is real, and that the physical world is merely made of shadows of the ideal world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalism https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nominalism-metaphysics/
My answer: Nominalism. I believe that anything that is “general” is just a “name” (but also, everything that exists is probably just a name!)
PhilPapers most voted: Platonism (39.3%)
Explanation: Is beauty “in the eye of the beholder”? https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/beauty/
My answer: Accept an intermediate view. Some features of what we consider beautiful are obviously subjective. However, people tend to agree on what they consider beautiful, and I think that this cannot be attributed only to cultural norms. Our interest in some forms of beauty is probably hard-wired in our brains. I also believe that “natural” beauty is related to physical principles such as “simplicity” and “regularity.”
PhilPapers most voted: Objective (41.0%)
Explanation: “Analytic propositions” are statements that are true or false only by virtue of their meaning (“All bachelors are unmarried”); “synthetic propositions” have a truth value that needs to be observed through experience (“All bachelors are sad”). The question is whether this distinction is meaningful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic%E2%80%93synthetic_distinction https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analytic-synthetic/
My answer: Accept an intermediate view. The question is very similar to Question 1, and to be consistent I should say “no”. In fact, I believe that analytic propositions are never actually true or false in a way that is not “syntactic” and based on conventions (i.e., they are just word games). However, I also believe that on a practical level of ordinary language it makes sense to be able to refer to statements of this kind, even if they are not expressing actual “truths.”
PhilPapers most voted: Yes (64.9%).
Explanation: In epistemology, “internalism” is the view that the justification for one’s belief are “internal” and in particular can be accessed through awareness. In contrast, “externalism” is the view that one may not be aware of the processes that led to their beliefs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internalism_and_externalism https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justep-intext/
My answer: Externalism (probably). I think that many of our beliefs do not originate from conscious processes. Here however I’m focusing on our awareness of these processes, not on whether they are imternal or external. I think it’s fairly obvious that these processes take place in our minds.
PhilPapers most voted: Externalism (42.7%).
Explanation: In metaphysics, idealism is the belief that “reality” is the same as our perception and understanding (“the world is in our minds”). Skepticism is the belief that objective reality might exist but it can never be known in its true form. Non-skeptical realism is the belief that objective reality exists and that we experience it (very similar to) how it actually is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_skepticism https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-episprob/
My answer: Skepticism. All of our knowledge of the world is based on our senses and any sort of confirmation from others relies on our ability to communicate our experience. In fact, I’m starting to believe that each person’s reality may be a very particular way of making sense of experiences (which also include what others “say” about their own experience) and that all of our realities may be dramatically different. In this scenario, I’m not sure what “objective” reality would be.
PhilPapers most voted: Non-skeptical realism (81.6%).
Explanation: The general problem is to reconcile our usual notion of free will (the idea that a person in a given situation has the ability to “decide” on how to act) with physical determinism (the fact that the evolution of a physical system is determined by its current state). “Libertarianism” simply rejects physical determinism, either by not accepting naturalistic theories, or by trying to use non-deterministic aspects of these theories, especially quantum mechanics. “Compatibilism” is instead the view that this determinism and free will are not actually in contradiction. This generally requires modifying the standard definition of free will. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill
My answer: No free will. I accept the notion of free will only as an “emergent” and higher-level phenomenon, or as a convenient way to communicate our experience, but I think that at a fundamental level free will cannot exist.
PhilPapers most voted: Compatibilism (59.1%).
Explanation: -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concepts-god/
My answer: Atheism, at least for the notion of God that exists in organized religions. At a deeper level, I might accept a very abstract notion of God (not in the form of a “being,” but rather an entity or a sort of universal “coherence”).
PhilPapers most voted: Atheism (72.8%).
Explanation: According to empiricism, sensory experience is the only source of knowledge. Rationalism argues instead that knowledge can also be obtained through reason without sensory experience. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/
My answer: Accept an intermediate view. In the typical dispute I would lean more towards empiricism. But I believe that reason can also be taken as a form of experience. In other words, formal manipulations of symbols that take place in mathematical arguments could be seen a form of “experience of thought.” If this is true, then the distinction between empiricism and rationalism is not clear.
PhilPapers most voted: Other (37.2%).
Explanation: “Contextualism” is the view that knowledge is “context-sensitive.” For example, if I say “I know X” then this can be true or false depending on the degree of knowledge required in that context. In contrast, “invariantism” is the view that knowledge is invariant to context. Relativism is a similar to contextualism but the truth value of a statement depends on the context in which it is assessed, rather than on the context in which it is stated (I think) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contextualism https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contextualism-epistemology/
My answer: Relativism (I think). This question is technical, but based on what I read I think I agree more with the idea that truth values of knowledge claims depend on how they are assessed (but I’m not sure I actually understood the distinction between contextualism and relativism).
PhilPapers most voted: Contextualism (40.1%).
Explanation: According to David Hume, physical laws are merely descriptions of regularities in nature. The Non-Humean view is instead that laws are “physical necessities.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humeanism https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laws-of-nature/
My answer: Humean. It is not clear to me what a “physical necessity” means.
PhilPapers most voted: Non-Humean (57.1%)
Explanation: Classical logic is based on propositional and first-order logic. Non-classical logic refers to formal systems that reject or extend typical assumptions of classical logic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-classical_logic https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-classical/
My answer: Non classical logic! I think I am most closely aligned with intuitionism. Philosophically, I would reject the law of excluded middle.
PhilPapers most voted: Classical (51.6%)
Explanation: According to Internalism, mental states always affect intrinsic properties of our beliefs. For Externalism, beliefs can be formed from facts that are external to the agent’s perspective. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internalism_and_externalism https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justep-intext/
My answer: I probably do not understand the question well enough, but I would say that there is no fact of the matter. I find the distinction between “internal” and “external” too fuzzy.
PhilPapers most voted: Externalism (51.1%)
Explanation: According to moral realism, ethical facts are objective properties of the world. For moral anti-realists, ethical facts are not objectively true are are “made up.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/
My answer: Accept an intermediate view. I believe that some ethical claims are more objective than others, but I don’t believe that any claim that can be stated in words can be universally true.
PhilPapers most voted: Moral realism (56.4%)
Explanation: There are different interpretations for the term “naturalism” in philosophy. In the context of metaphilsophy, I take it to mean the fact that physics and the natural sciences are on the same plane as philosophy (or might even supplant it) as a way of explaining the world. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/
My answer: Accept an intermediate view. I have a very scientific view of the world but I’ve also been thinking a lot about the practical limits of mathematics and logic as languages for explaining all truths. In particular, I’m not certain that I completely accept the main naturalist view that the “physical world is all that exists.”
PhilPapers most voted: Naturalism (49.8%)
Explanation: In philosophy of mind, physicalism is the view that the mind is a purely physical phenomenon that can in principle be explained using the laws of physics. Non-physicalist views such as dualism claim that the mind in some ways separate from the physical world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/
My answer: Physicalism, at least for how the two positions are usually presented. As I mentioned above, I have issues with the notion of “physical world,” but assuming that it exists I would consider the mind to be part of it.
PhilPapers most voted: Physicalism (56.5%)
Explanation: This is similar to the distinction between moral realism and anti-realism. Non-cognitivism can be seen as a particular form of anti-realism that claims that moral statements are not even propositions and thus cannot even be true or false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitivism_(ethics) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-cognitivism/
My answer: Not sure I understand the significance of the distinction. I definitely believe that it is useful to to assign truth-values to moral statements.
PhilPapers most voted: Cognitivism (65.7%)
Explanation: In moral philosophy, internalism is the view that moral convictions are “intrinsically motivating,” which means that there is a connection between what we believe is right or wrong and what we are willing or not willing to do. Externalism is the view that this connection is not necessary, and a person may be “amoralist.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internalism_and_externalism
My answer: I think I might lean towards internalism, simply because I prefer to define moral convictions as subjective, and as beliefs that affect behavior.
PhilPapers most voted: Other (35.3%)
Explanation: Newcomb’s problem is a thought experiment meant to illustrate the contradiction between two principles in decision theory (expected utility maximization and the principle of dominance). See links for the statement of the problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/decision-causal/#NewcProb https://brilliant.org/wiki/newcombs-paradox/
My answer: One box. If one accepts the statement of the problem (that the predictor is accurate), then I think the choice if obvious.
PhilPapers most voted: Other (47.4%)
Explanation: Normative ethics answers the question: how do we examine what is right and wrong? Deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics are three classical approaches to this problem. Informally, virtue ethics evaluates the character of a person, deontology evaluates actions based on rules, while consequentialism evaluates actions based on consequences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative_ethics
My answer: I’m probably somewhere in between consequentialism and deontology, something like a rule utilitarianism. But I’m not certain about this, and I suspect that for any meta-ethical theory one could find edge cases where I do not agree with the theory.
PhilPapers most voted: Other (32.3%)
Explanation: Disjunctivism is the view that conscious perceptual experiences arising from illusions and hallucinations have a fundamentally different nature than veridical perceptual experiences. Qualia can be described as “The ‘what it is like’ character of mental states. The way it feels to have mental states such as pain, seeing red, smelling a rose, etc.” According to many philosophers, studying the physics and chemistry of neurons will never explain the subjective aspect of qualia. Representationalists deny that direct knowledge of the external world is possible, and believe our ideas are formed from internal representations derived from and external world. According to sense-datum theory, sense data are mind-independent features that we access through our perceptions, and that differ from both objective reality and our conscious perception of it. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-disjunctive/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-representational/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_data
My answer: Probably representationalism, but I don’t think any of the options represent my views exactly.
PhilPapers most voted: Other (42.2%)
Explanation: The topic of the question is what constitutes identity, or what it means to be a “person.” One can say that a person is defined as a physical biological organism (biological view). Alternatively, a person can be defined by psychological continuity, since a future self inherits mental features from a previous self. Finally, one an take the position that “personal identity is a deep further fact, distinct from physical and psychological continuity” (from Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons). One possible candidate for a further fact could be our conscious experience. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Further_facts
My answer: I probably lean towards towards the psychological view, but I do not think that continuity is essential.
PhilPapers most voted: Other (37.3%)
Explanation: Communitarianism is the view that communities shape our individual identities, and should thus determine moral and political choices. More concretely, this means that politics should always take into consideration traditions and culture, and that concepts of justice can vary based on context. In contrast, libertarians generally believe that the concept of justice is universal, and in particular is rooted in the value of individual freedom. Libertarians want free-markets to organize society and relationships. Egalitarians believe in the value of some form of “equality,” although the meaning of this term can vary widely https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/communitarianism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egalitarianism/
My answer: I think all views capture meaningful aspects of my interpretation of justice, but I am probably more attracted to communitarianism (mainly because I’m not a moral realist, so I do not believe in any universally good way to organize society).
PhilPapers most voted: Other (41.0%)
Explanation: The Millian perspective on proper names (named after John Stuart Mill) is simply the common sense view that a proper name is a word that identifies a referent in the world. This view however has several issues since, for example, proper names can refer to non-existent entities. It is also problematic to assign truth values to statements with proper names. The Fregean perspective (also known as the “descriptive theory of names”) holds instead that a proper name is a set of properties that can be expressed as a description that picks out an object that satisfies the description. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/names/
My answer: I think that the the descriptive theory of names has its own set of problems, but I do not know the subject well enough to have a real opinion.
PhilPapers most voted: Other (36.8%)
Explanation: Scientific realism can be described generically as a “positive epistemic attitude toward the content of our best theories and models, recommending belief in both observable and unobservable aspects of the world described by the sciences” (from SEP, see below). In other words, it is a belief that our best scientific theories are “true” (at least approximately). Anti-realism is instead an attitude that rejects scientific realism in some form. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/
My answer: I consider myself more of anti-realist (even though I definitely support science as a practice), since I question many of the methods and assumptions of science and, in particular, the existence of a unified objective “reality”.
PhilPapers most voted: Realism (75.1%)
Explanation: A thought experiment on our notions of personal identity and consciousness. You are disassembled and then recreated with new matter. Did you die? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletransportation_paradox
My answer: Survival. I think that identity and self is more related to information than to continuity.
PhilPapers most voted: Survival (36.2%)
Explanation: According to the A-theory of time, there exists a meaningful fundamental distinction between past, present or future events. According to the B-theory of time, this distinction is only psychological, and past, present, and future are equally “real.” In other words, the notion of “becoming” is not an objective feature of reality. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-theory_of_time
My answer: Instinctively I lean towards B-Theory, probably because it is more aligned with the modern scientific view of the universe. But the difference between the two perspectives is interesting and I would like to think more about it. I suspect that it can be viewed as a fundamental dichotomy that cannot be be fully resolved (similar to my take on realism).
PhilPapers most voted: Other (58.2%)
Explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
My answer: Don’t switch. This is such a difficult question that I prefer to avoid doing anything (for one thing, I do not know anything about the people involved). I probably would switch if the tradeoff was 1million to 1, but not for five.
PhilPapers most voted: Switch (68.2%)
Explanation: What do we mean when we say that a statement is true or false? The “correspondence” theory of truth is the most natural one: the truth or falsity of a statement depends on the way the statement is related to objective reality. This view however raises several objections: what is “objective reality”? And how do we know that it is reachable? In order to recognize any sort of correspondence, we must make some assumptions whose validity cannot be governed by the same correspondence theory (otherwise the definition becomes circular). Epistemic theories of truth are similar but make explicit assumptions on epistemic notions. For example, according to “perspectivism” (a particular class of epistemic theories of truth), a statement is true only relative to a certain perspective. Finally, according to the deflationary theories of truth, the notion of truth actually has no metaphysical significance. This is typically derived from the idea that claiming that “a proposition ‘P’ is true” does not add anything beyond the proposition P itself. In particular, a theory of truth not only depends on a theory meaning or content, but would actually be completely determined by the latter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondence_theory_of_truth https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_theories_of_truth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflationary_theory_of_truth
My answer: I think the deflationary theory makes the most sense, even if it seems that it does not give a very satisfactory definition of truth and reality.
PhilPapers most voted: Correspondence (50.8%)
Explanation: Philosophical zombies are a thought experiment popularized by David Chalmers that imagines a being that acts exactly like a normal person but has no inner conscious experience. The question is whether such a being is conceivable or can exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/
My answer: Conceivable but not metaphyiscally possible. If consciousness is physical property, then any being which is physically indistinguishable from a normal person is just as conscious as anyone else.
PhilPapers most voted: Conceivable but not metaphysically possible (35.6%).
https://philpapers.org/surveys/oquestions.html https://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl https://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2015/04/06/philosophy-101-philpapers-induced-7-free-will-compatibilism-libertarianism-or-no-free-will/