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Saturday, March 28, 2020

Philosophical survey

Questions from a survey of philosophers:


I'll give my own answers. I don't have considered opinions on every question. I'm not equally interested in every philosophical issue. I find metaphysics more interesting than epistemology, while theology is my paramount interest. 


A priori knowledge: yes or no?

Accept or lean toward: yes
Accept or lean toward: no
Other

Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?

Accept or lean toward: Platonism
Accept or lean toward: nominalism
Other theistic conceptual realism (Welty/Anderson)

Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?

Accept or lean toward: objective
Accept or lean toward: subjective
Other aesthetic appreciation has a subjective element but it's not sheerly subjective. Indeed, failure to appreciate beauty is a defect in the observer. 

Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?

Accept or lean toward: yes
Accept or lean toward: no
Other in an interview, Quine admitted that one of his aims in "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" was to eliminate the status of propositions as abstract objects with independent existence. I demur. 

Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?

Accept or lean toward: externalism
Accept or lean toward: internalism
Other no opinion

External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?

Accept or lean toward: non-skeptical realism
Accept or lean toward: skepticism
Accept or lean toward: idealism
Other

Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?

Accept or lean toward: compatibilism
Accept or lean toward: libertarianism
Accept or lean toward: no free will
Other

God: theism or atheism?

Accept or lean toward: atheism
Accept or lean toward: theism
Other

Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?

Accept or lean toward: contextualism
Accept or lean toward: invariantism
Accept or lean toward: relativism
Other I reject relativism 

Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?

Accept or lean toward: empiricism
Accept or lean toward: rationalism
Other basically, I think we have intuitive knowledge of abstract objects and empirical knowledge of concrete objects

Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?

Accept or lean toward: non-Humean
Accept or lean toward: Humean
Other on one definition, natural laws are descriptive rather than prescriptive or proscriptive. On another definition, they stand for natural forces with genuine causal powers.

Logic: classical or non-classical?

Accept or lean toward: classical
Accept or lean toward: non-classical
Other no opinion

Mental content: internalism or externalism?

Accept or lean toward: externalism
Accept or lean toward: internalism
Other: false dichotomy

Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?

Accept or lean toward: moral realism
Accept or lean toward: moral anti-realism
Other metaphysically I'm a moral realist but epistemologically I'm a moral skeptic (offset by biblical ethics).

Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?

Accept or lean toward: naturalism
Accept or lean toward: non-naturalism
Other Christian supernaturalism

Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?

Accept or lean toward: physicalism
Accept or lean toward: non-physicalism
Other Cartesian dualism

Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?

Accept or lean toward: cognitivism
Accept or lean toward: non-cognitivism
Other

Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?
Accept or lean toward: internalism
Accept or lean toward: externalism
Other in Christian ethics, divine revelation (externalism) and personal holiness (internalism) are both essential components to moral motivation

Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?
Accept or lean toward: two boxes
Accept or lean toward: one box
Other no opinon

Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?

Accept or lean toward: deontology
Accept or lean toward: consequentialism
Accept or lean toward: virtue ethics
Other all three have a grain of truth: 

• Deontology has a point insofar as some actions are intrinsically right or wrong, consequences be damned. A weakness of deontologist is that it's too abstract. It provides no list of which actions that are intrinsically right or wrong. By itself, deontology generates intractable moral dilemmas. 

• Consequentialism has a point insofar as results are sometimes a morally salient or even necessary consideration. 

• Virtue ethics has a point insofar as cultivating inner goodness is the ultimate aim of moral formation. 

Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?
Accept or lean toward: representationalism
Accept or lean toward: qualia theory
Accept or lean toward: disjunctivism
Accept or lean toward: sense-datum theory
Other indirect realism

Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?

Accept or lean toward: psychological view
Accept or lean toward: biological view
Accept or lean toward: further-fact view
Other I think personal identity is grounded in God's complete concept of each person. 

Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?

Accept or lean toward: egalitarianism
Accept or lean toward: communitarianism
Accept or lean toward: libertarianism
Other generally egalitarian but sympathetic to some libertarian concerns

Proper names: Fregean or Millian?

Accept or lean toward: 
Accept or lean toward: Fregean
Other no opinion

Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?

Accept or lean toward: scientific realism
Accept or lean toward: scientific anti-realism
Other

Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?

Accept or lean toward: survival
Accept or lean toward: death
Other since I'm not a physicalist, I reject a presupposition of the thought-experiment

Time: A-theory or B-theory?
Accept or lean toward: B-theory
Accept or lean toward: A-theory
Other philosophically I lean to the B-theory but theologically I lean to the A-theory. When push comes to shove, theology trumps philosophy. However, we may be too enmeshed in time to figure out what time is really like. 

Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?

Accept or lean toward: switch
Accept or lean toward: don't switch
Other all things being equal, flip the switch. However, I'd sacrifice five to save just one if that one person was my son or mother father or best friend. Likewise, I'd sacrifice five pedophiles or serial killers to save one innocent person. So the Trolly problem is too abstract. Not every life has equal claims on me. And some people can forfeit the prima facie right to life. 

Keep in mind that the Trolly problem is a forced option. Under that scenario, sacrificing lives is not equivalent to taking lives (or killing). It's about which lives, if any, to save, given a dilemma you didn't create. You didn't choose the dilemma–that's a given. You can only make a choice within the stipulated range of the dilemma. 

In addition, the possibility of genuine moral dilemmas depends on your view of divine providence. Some hypothetical conundra may be excluded by divine providence, so that we're never confronted by the predicament. 

Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?

Accept or lean toward: correspondence
Accept or lean toward: deflationary
Accept or lean toward: epistemic
Other roughly speaking, correspondence for contingent truths and coherence for necessary truths

Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?

Accept or lean toward: conceivable but not metaphysically possible
Accept or lean toward: metaphysically possible
Accept or lean toward: inconceivable

Other no opinion. I'd have to do more reading on the question. 

2 comments:

  1. Quick question Steve.
    Related to conceptual theistic realism (and Anderson/Welty's argument from LoL), have you come across the issue of quantum indeterminacy and its implications for LoL. Am example of this is of course, the somewhat famous electron slit experiments and the electron exhibiting contradictory states simultaneously.

    As someone without any background, my initial thoughts were that if LoL (particularly the law of contradiction) could be ostensibly not invalid, we would have no way to know it (I. E it would be an epistemological impossibility). I was just wondering if you or anyone you knew had interacted with that claim before?

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    Replies
    1. i) Quantum indeterminacy is one of several competing interpretations of QM. There are deterministic interpretations as well, such as the many-worlds interpretation.

      ii) In Calvinism, the primary determinant is predestination, not physical determinism. Every thing happens according to God's plan, but that's neutral with respect to the mechanism.

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