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Dirk Hartmann

University of Duisburg-Essen
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My Survey Responses

Survey Prompt Response
A priori knowledge Accept: yes
Abortion Accept an alternative view: Permissible in the first trimester. Impermissible once it has sensations/feelings of its own (probably 20 weeks in). Law should err on the side of caution, though.
Abstract objects Accept: nominalism
Aesthetic experience Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept pleasure
  • Accept perception
  • Accept sui generis
  • Accept a combination of all three
Aesthetic value Lean towards: objective
Aim of philosophy Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept goodness/justice
  • Neutral towards happiness
  • Accept truth/knowledge
  • Accept understanding
  • Neutral towards wisdom
Analysis of knowledge Accept an alternative view: Justified true belief, but "justified" must be understood in way that avoids Gettier
Analytic-synthetic distinction Accept: yes
Arguments for theism Accept an alternative view: Hermeneutical: Analyze the term "god" (adequately) in such a way that the main religious tenets come out true.
Capital punishment Accept: impermissible
Chinese room The question is too unclear to answer
Continuum hypothesis Accept: indeterminate
Cosmological fine-tuning Accept an alternative view: Some version of anthropic principle
Eating animals and animal products Accept a combination of answers:
  • Lean towards omnivorism (yes and yes)
  • Accept Omnivorism in principle, but as animals still have rights which would restrict an "unconditioned" omnivorism in many ways.
Epistemic justification Accept: internalism
Experience machine Accept: no
External world Accept: idealism
Footbridge Accept: don't push
Foundations of mathematics Accept: constructivism/intuitionism
Free will Accept: libertarianism
Gender Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept social
  • Reject unreal
  • Accept psychological
  • Accept biological
God Accept an alternative view: Depends on which meaning is assigned to the expression "god"
Hard problem of consciousness Accept: no
Hume Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept skeptic
  • Accept naturalist
Immortality Accept: no
Interlevel metaphysics Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept realization
  • Accept supervenience
  • Reject identity
  • Lean towards grounding
Kant Accept: two worlds
Knowledge Accept: rationalism
Knowledge claims Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept invariantism
  • Neutral towards contextualism
  • Accept If the meaning of the sentence expressing the to be known fact is fixed, then invariantism, contextualism otherwise
Law Accept: legal non-positivism
Laws of nature Accept: non-Humean
Logic Accept: non-classical
Meaning of life Accept a combination of answers:
  • Reject nonexistent
  • Accept objective
  • Accept subjective
Mental content Accept: internalism
Meta-ethics Accept an alternative view: Instead of the term "realism" I would prefer "moral objectivism" or "moral universalism"
Metaontology Accept an alternative view: anti-realism, but in the specific sense of the principle of knowability
Metaphilosophy Accept: non-naturalism
Method in history of philosophy Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept combine these views
Mind Accept: non-physicalism
Mind uploading Accept: death
Moral judgment Accept: cognitivism
Moral motivation Accept: internalism
Moral principles Accept: moral generalism
Morality The question is too unclear to answer
Newcomb's problem There is no fact of the matter
Normative ethics Accept: deontology
Other minds The question is too unclear to answer
Ought implies can Accept: yes
Perceptual experience The question is too unclear to answer
Personal identity Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept biological and psychological view both state necessary conditions which only in combination are sufficient for personal identity
Philosophical knowledge Accept: a lot
Philosophical methods Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept conceptual engineering
  • Accept conceptual analysis
  • Reject empirical philosophy
  • Reject intuition-based philosophy
  • Accept formal philosophy
  • Accept linguistic philosophy
  • Reject experimental philosophy
Philosophical progress Accept: a lot
Political philosophy Accept an alternative view: We need a synthesis of those three
Politics Accept an alternative view: social market economy as a synthesis of both
Possible worlds Accept: abstract
Practical reason Accept: Kantian
Principle of sufficient reason Accept an alternative view: Depends on what it is supposed to say. If "reason"="cause", then false. "Reason" must be understood in a wider sense for the principle to be true.
Proper names The question is too unclear to answer
Properties Accept: immanent universals
Propositional attitudes Accept: dispositional
Propositions Accept a combination of answers:
  • Neutral towards sets
  • Lean towards acts
  • Reject nonexistent
  • Accept structured entities
  • Reject simple entities
  • Accept abstract objects abstracted from semantically equivalent statements
Quantum mechanics Accept an alternative view: I accept a version of the Kopenhagen interpretation
Race Accept: unreal
Race categories Accept: eliminate
Rational disagreement The question is too unclear to answer
Response to external-world skepticism Accept an alternative view: transcendental combined with principle of knowability
Science Accept an alternative view: Premises: Substitutional view of quantification and principle of knowability. On this background (directly) unobservable objects can be said to exist (and instrumentalism rejected).
Spacetime Accept: relationism
Statue and lump Accept: two things
Teletransporter Accept: death
Time Accept an alternative view: Both, but for this to be true the future must be "open" i.e. the B-series is never "complete"
Time travel Accept: metaphysically impossible
Trolley problem Accept: don't switch
True contradictions Accept: impossible
Truth Accept: epistemic
Units of selection Accept: organisms
Vagueness Accept: semantic
Values in science Accept: can be either
Wittgenstein Accept an alternative view: Much more late because "meaning is use", but there's many valid insights in early W. too
Zombies Accept: inconceivable