Nine
hundred and thirty one contemporary philosophers took part in a recent survey. The word "philosopher" in this context means a member of a university department of philosophy. The 99 departments involved were generally Anglophonic and analytic in history/orientation.
So ... given some commonality in education, profession, language, historic lineage ... has there come to be a consensus on the Big Questions?
Not really. But the particulars of that answer are fascinating.
I’ll
just select the ten questions on their survey that have given my mind the most
solicitude over the years, and tell you what the survey results say, and only then answer those for myself:
1.
Abstract
objects: Platonism or nominalism?
Accept
or lean toward Platonism 366
(39.3%)
Accept
or lean toward nominalism 351
(37.7%)
Other 214
(23.0%)
2.
Analytic-synthetic
distinction: yes or no?
Accept
or lean toward yes 604
(64.9%)
Accept
or lean toward no 252
(27.1%)
Other 75
(8.1%)
3.
External
world: Idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?
Accept
or lean toward non-skeptical realism 750 (81.6%)
Other
86
(9.2%)
Accept
or lean toward skepticism 45
(4.8%)
Accept
or lean toward idealism 40
(4.3%)
4.
Free
will …
Accept
or lean toward compatibilism 550
(59.1%)
Other
139 (14.9%)
Accept
or lean toward libertarianism 128
(13.7%)
Accept
or lean toward no free will 114
(12.2%)
5.
God:
theism or atheism
Accept
or lean toward atheism 678
(72.8%)
Accept
or lean toward theism 136
(14.6%)
Other 117
(12.6%)
6.
Moral
judgement: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?
Accept
or lean toward cognitivism 612
(65.7%)
Other
161 (17.3%)
Accept
or lean toward non-cognitivism 158
(17%)
7.
Normative
ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?
Other
301 (32.3%)
Accept
or lean toward deontology 241
(25.9%)
Accept
or lean toward consequentialism 220 (23.6%)
Accept
or lean toward virtue ethics 169
(18.2%)
8.
Personal
identity: Biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?
Other 347
(37.3%)
Accept
or lean toward psychological view 313
(33.6%)
Accept
or lean toward biological view 157
(16.9%)
Accept
or lean toward further-fact view 114
(12.2%)
9.
Politics:
communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?
Other 382
(41%)
Accept
or lean toward egalitarianism 324
(34.8%)
Accept
or lean toward communitarianism 133
(14.3%)
Accept
or lean toward libertarianism 92
(9.9%)
10. Time: A-theory
or B-theory
Translation: the
A-theory holds that time is a reality, the B-theory that it is an illusion.
Other 542
(58.2%)
Accept
or lean toward B-theory 245
(26.3%)
Accept
or lean toward A-theory 144
(15.5%)
-----------------------------
Had I been asked, despite the fact that I am not qualified by the surveys standards, I would have answered those ten as follows:
Yes on nominalism. No on the analytic/synthetic distinction. Yes on non-skeptical realism and incompatibilist free will (i.e. 'libertarianism' in the first sense in which it is used in this survey). "Other" on theism and "yes" to cognitivism in moral judgment. Yes to consequentialism and to a psychological view of identity (stream-of-consciousness and all that). Yes to libertarianism in the second sense in which it is used here, and to the reality of time, aka the A theory.
On questions 3 and 6 I'm comfortably within a consensus view, although the more common situation, where there is something like a consensus, is that I'm against it, as with both free will and God.
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