• Michael
    14.1k
    Apparently the forum doesn't like big surveys, so I'll try again.

    Thought it would be interesting to reproduce some of the questions here to better see the breakdown of various positions we have. I'll limit it to just 9 questions, as things start to break with more.
    1. Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic? (22 votes)
        Accept or lean toward: correspondence
        32%
        Accept or lean toward: deflationary
        18%
        Accept or lean toward: epistemic
        32%
        Other
        18%
    2. Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism? (22 votes)
        Accept or lean toward: Platonism
        27%
        Accept or lean toward: nominalism
        45%
        Other
        27%
    3. External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? (22 votes)
        Accept or lean toward: non-skeptical realism
        36%
        Accept or lean toward: idealism
        14%
        Accept or lean toward: skepticism
        23%
        Other
        27%
    4. Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will? (22 votes)
        Accept or lean toward: compatibilism
        55%
        Accept or lean toward: libertarianism
        18%
        Accept or lean toward: no free will
        18%
        Other
        9%
    5. God: theism or atheism? (22 votes)
        Accept or lean toward: atheism
        55%
        Accept or lean toward: theism
        23%
        Other
        23%
    6. Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism? (22 votes)
        Accept or lean toward: moral realism
        50%
        Accept or lean toward: moral anti-realism
        27%
        Other
        23%
    7. Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism? (22 votes)
        Accept or lean toward: physicalism
        36%
        Accept or lean toward: non-physicalism
        36%
        Other
        27%
    8. Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory? (22 votes)
        Accept or lean toward: representationalism
        18%
        Accept or lean toward: qualia theory
        9%
        Accept or lean toward: disjunctivism
          5%
        Accept or lean toward: sense-datum theory
        9%
        Other
        59%
    9. Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics? (22 votes)
        Accept or lean toward: deontology
        14%
        Accept or lean toward: consequentialism
        18%
        Accept or lean toward: virtue ethics
        59%
        Other
        9%
  • Benkei
    7.1k
    Cool. I had to eyeball a few questions based on summaries because I haven't really given a few subjects much thought before.
  • Michael
    14.1k
    I picked "Other" for "External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?". I side with internal realism/transcendental idealism.
  • Benkei
    7.1k
    I'm pretty much a Kantian, so that one was easy. ;-)

    EDIT: interestingly enough you didn't opt for a correspondence theory of truth.
  • Michael
    14.1k
    I'm pretty much a Kantian, so that one was easy.Benkei

    You picked idealism? I don't think of Kant's transcendental idealism as idealism, just as I don't think of Putnam's internal realism as realism. Despite their names, I think they're very similar (if not outright the same), and neither properly counts as either realism or idealism (as traditionally understood), hence why I chose "Other".

    interestingly enough you didn't opt for a correspondence theory of truth.

    I'm partial to Dummett's account of truth, which I think works best with Wittgenstein's account of meaning. If we want to know what it means to be true then we have to look to how we use the word "true", and its use is tied to something like verification procedures, so an epistemic theory of truth.
  • Benkei
    7.1k
    You picked idealism? I don't think of Kant's transcendental idealism as idealism, just as I don't think of Putnam's internal realism as realism. Despite their names, I think they're very similar (if not outright the same), and neither properly counts as either realism or idealism (as traditionally understood), hence why I chose "Other".Michael

    Strictly you're correct, Kant (in his own terms) was of course an empirical realist and transcendental idealist. I opted for idealism because of Kant's position on correspondence theory of truth and knowledge. So transcendental idealism is a requirement in his view (which I share), the empirical realism less so. As Morrandir once explained it:

    As a sidenote, for Kant a theory of knowledge is indeed possible (or so he thinks) and in fact he would claim that only for a transcendental idealist can this be possible. The reason for this might be constructed as follows. Truth is to be understood as correspondence between our judgments and reality. If reality is taken to be transcendentally real, then the correspondence is between our judgments and a reality wholly independent and unreachable for us. I cannot know whether my judgment "I have a blue shirt on" is true or false since this refers to some reality that is by definition inaccessible to us: we are doomed to mere beliefs and can have no knowledge. But if reality is taken to be transcendentally ideal, then the correspondence is between my judgments and the (REAL!) objects that present themselves in my experience. Then this correspondence can be established, and we can have knowledge. Of course, a hardcore proponent of correspondence theory could not accept Kant's formulation of it, since it is more properly thought as a sort of coherence theory instead of a proper correspondence theory.
  • unenlightened
    8.7k
    It's not that I sit on the fence about all these ismic controversies, so much as I find myself firmly on both sides; 'other' suggests something not either, rather than both, but it is the nearest I can get to not misleading. Sometimes, though I had to more or less invent a position not to seem entirely contrarian.
  • Thorongil
    3.2k
    I marked theism but had in mind "lean toward," as I do lean more toward it than atheism.
  • Thorongil
    3.2k
    The number of alleged virtue ethicists so far is somewhat surprising. I put that, but only because I don't know what else to call Schopenhauer's ethics.
  • _db
    3.6k
    Yeah, I was also surprised at how many virtue ethicists there are on here. Also nominalists.
  • andrewk
    2.1k
    I wonder if any of the other Others in Perceptual Experience clicked that because, like me, they didn't know what any of the named terms meant.
  • Noble Dust
    7.8k


    *Raises hand* had to do a google search.

    Also, for all of the "surprised at" posts...we're at 19 votes so far...I guess that's pretty good, but still a fraction of the forum populous...
  • Michael
    14.1k
    I'm surprised about the number of compatibilists. I guess the hard determinists and libertarians are just more vocal.
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