More details
University of California, Los Angeles
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 1971
Homepage
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language
Logic and Philosophy of Logic

My Survey Responses

Survey Prompt Response
A priori knowledge Lean towards: no
Abortion Accept: permissible
Abstract objects Accept an alternative view: there are (Platonic) abstract objects designated by some terms, but nominalism holds for many terms
Aesthetic experience Accept a combination of answers:
  • Neutral towards pleasure
  • Lean towards perception
  • Lean towards sui generis
Aesthetic value Accept: subjective
Aim of philosophy Accept: truth/knowledge
Analysis of knowledge Lean towards: justified true belief
Analytic-synthetic distinction Lean towards: yes
Arguments for theism Accept a combination of answers:
  • Reject cosmological
  • Reject ontological
  • Reject pragmatic
  • Reject design
  • Reject moral
Belief or credence Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Capital punishment Accept: permissible
Causation Lean towards: process/production
Chinese room Lean towards: understands
Concepts Accept: empiricism
Consciousness Accept: identity theory
Continuum hypothesis Accept: indeterminate
Cosmological fine-tuning Accept: no fine-tuning
Eating animals and animal products Accept: omnivorism (yes and yes)
Environmental ethics Accept: anthropocentric
Epistemic justification Accept: externalism
Experience machine Lean towards: yes
Extended mind Lean towards: no
External world Accept: non-skeptical realism
Footbridge Accept: push
Foundations of mathematics Accept: set-theoretic
Free will Accept: compatibilism
Gender Accept a combination of answers:
  • Reject unreal
  • Lean towards social
  • Lean towards psychological
  • Accept biological
Gender categories Accept: revise
God Accept: atheism
Grounds of intentionality Accept: primitive
Hard problem of consciousness Lean towards: no
Human genetic engineering Accept: permissible
Hume Lean towards: naturalist
Immortality Accept: yes
Interlevel metaphysics Accept: identity
Justification Accept: nonreliabilist foundationalism
Kant Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Knowledge Accept: empiricism
Knowledge claims Lean towards: contextualism
Law Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Laws of nature Lean towards: Humean
Logic Lean towards: classical
Material composition Accept: universalism
Meaning of life Accept: nonexistent
Mental content Lean towards: externalism
Meta-ethics Lean towards: moral anti-realism
Metaontology Accept: heavyweight realism
Metaphilosophy Lean towards: naturalism
Method in history of philosophy Accept: analytic/rational reconstruction
Method in political philosophy Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Mind Accept: physicalism
Mind uploading Accept: survival
Moral judgment Accept: cognitivism
Moral motivation Lean towards: internalism
Moral principles Lean towards: moral generalism
Morality Lean towards: expressivism
Newcomb's problem Accept: one box
Normative concepts Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Normative ethics Accept: consequentialism
Other minds Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept adult humans
  • Lean towards cats
  • Reject fish
  • Reject flies
  • Reject worms
  • Reject plants
  • Reject particles
  • Neutral towards newborn babies
  • Lean against current AI systems
  • Lean towards future AI systems
Ought implies can Accept: no
Perceptual experience Accept: representationalism
Personal identity Lean towards: psychological view
Philosophical knowledge Accept: a lot
Philosophical methods Accept a combination of answers:
  • Neutral towards empirical philosophy
  • Reject conceptual engineering
  • Accept linguistic philosophy
  • Lean towards conceptual analysis
  • Accept formal philosophy
  • Lean against experimental philosophy
  • Lean towards intuition-based philosophy
Philosophical progress Accept: a lot
Plato Accept: knowledge only of forms
Political philosophy Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Politics Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Possible worlds Accept: abstract
Practical reason Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Principle of sufficient reason Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Proper names Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept Millian
  • Accept Fregean
Properties Accept: tropes
Propositional attitudes Accept an alternative view: each of representational, dispositional, phenomenal corresponds to some propositional attitude
Propositions Accept: structured entities
Quantum mechanics Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Race Lean towards: social
Race categories Lean towards: eliminate
Rational disagreement Lean towards: non-permissivism
Response to external-world skepticism Accept: semantic externalist
Science Accept: scientific realism
Semantic content Accept: minimalism (no more than a few)
Sleeping beauty Accept: one-half
Spacetime Lean towards: substantivalism
Statue and lump Accept: one thing
Teletransporter Accept: survival
Temporal ontology Lean towards: growing block
Theory of reference Accept: causal
Time Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept A-theory
  • Accept B-theory
Time travel Lean towards: metaphysically possible
Trolley problem Accept: switch
True contradictions Accept: impossible
Truth Accept: correspondence
Units of selection Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Vagueness Accept: semantic
Values in science Accept: necessarily value-free
Well-being Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Wittgenstein Accept a combination of answers:
  • Reject early
  • Reject late
Zombies Lean towards: metaphysically possible