The 2020 PhilPapers Survey
https://survey2020.philpeople.org
I just became aware of this. A new survey of 1785 English-speaking philosophers from around the world on 100 philosophical questions.
Turns out you are probably safe to cross a bridge with a philosopher, who will most likely be an atheist and a socialist and will pull the leaver on the trolly.
Extended mind comes out in front by a fair margin, the Chinese Room does not understand Chinese, philosophy is mainly about conceptual analysis.
Non-skeptical realism remains far ahead of idealism.
I just became aware of this. A new survey of 1785 English-speaking philosophers from around the world on 100 philosophical questions.
Turns out you are probably safe to cross a bridge with a philosopher, who will most likely be an atheist and a socialist and will pull the leaver on the trolly.
Extended mind comes out in front by a fair margin, the Chinese Room does not understand Chinese, philosophy is mainly about conceptual analysis.
Non-skeptical realism remains far ahead of idealism.
Comments (48)
Why is the year 1785 considered special? :chin:
:cool:
More philosophers were agnostic than structuralist or constructivist with regard to mathematics, but 38% think the continuum hypothesis determinate, 29% think it indeterminate, and 27% are undecided.
Is there any similar survey of mathematicians? The comparison might be amusing...
I'm not aware of any, but there may be. I've never associated with a fellow mathematician who had more than a passing curiosity about the CH. Set theory and transfinites in particular were not applicable to our studies in complex analysis. From what I've seen on arXiv.org there's not a lot of current interest in this subject.
Determinate? Well, you can tack it on as another axiom to ZFC I suppose.
As I went through the questions and answers, my main thought was "Geez, no wonder people think philosophy is bullshit."
But people have beliefs on these things -- just usually indistinct. Philosophers, on the whole, prefer more detail than most people care for.
:up:
People who like detail more than most people like detail more than most people... :D Fair enough.
"Any philosopher living in the last seventy years - name-check or not bothered?" Nah.
Still, interesting for what it's worth.
You're getting old my friend. You talked about this a year ago
here..
I think this needs a thread elucidating this important train of thought. Why might a philosopher think this is the right thing to do? If she is an analytic type it could make sense, provided she is also into foundations of mathematics. But if she be in ethics, then that is a whole other can of worms!
But yes, I am getting old.
It always struck me as odd that a bunch of numbskulls oblivious to the fact that a train is about to hit them should be rescued so as to live and reproduce in favor of killing an individual that, in one way or another, has no evident stupidity to speak of. A kind of Darwin Awards handed to those who so select for the human species gene pool.
p.s. I should add: that whole intentional killing of a person thing aside.
No, it's not morally different. No more than would be pulling the trigger of a gun - flipping its switch, so to speak - so as to accomplish the same result via the same means. One could even address the pushing of red buttons so as to launch nukes with the same overall intent.
Whimsy aside, though we all like to believe people are all of equal value when we intellectualize, in our everyday lives we judge very differently - and maybe, at least at times, this for good reasons. Making things other than a simple numbers game. For instance, most would consider it ethically wrong to cause the death of one Einstein or one Gandhi so as to save a thousand Hitlers (neo-Nazis excluded). In many versions of the trolley problem (such as the one where a person is pushed off of a bridge), what can be known beforehand - all else being equal - is that one would sacrifice an innocent bystander to rescue a plurality of people that give no heed to the sounds of an approaching train while standing on train tracks. Here is a question of relative value, including that of merit, rather than one of strict numbers.
But adjust the trolley problem's parameters and the ethical issues drastically change: e.g., five captive people tied down to train tracks by some assailant vs. one bystander. It's still a question of value - is the value of the five captives more than that of the one bystander? - and here it seems far more appropriate to deem "yes". This despite there yet being a lot of unknowns in terms of who these people are. But we live with risks in the choices we make all the time.
Btw, while a different thread might indeed be appropriate for this topic, as jgill says, I'm not prepared to start one.
I already did that for another of your stray ideas, achieving nothing.
Quoting javra The origin of what is now called the trolley problem is an article by Philippa Foot , the point of which was to draw attention to the Doctrine of Double Effect. seems to be aware of it's place in relation to discussions of abortion.
Foot's article, in the link above, is immediately followed by Anscombe's quibble. At stake was the logic of intentionality, but now the argument is used to amuse neophytes.
(I've no objection to discussing this here rather than in another thread.)
As you well should. A joke. :cool:
To achieve nothing on TPF is refreshingly consistent. :wink:
One might do worse than not to add to the net total of confusion hereabouts.
So academic philosophy is a complete joke. Roger that.
That depends on the purpose of the survey. A survey doesnt have to be philosophically interesting ( assuming thats what you mean by interesting) , generally their purpose is to inform. In this case, more like expose.
The fact that even the trained professional philosophers are split fairly evenly on virtually every philosophical query makes it an academic parody. What then does philosophy offer? To what purpose is academic training in philosophy if they offer the same lack of conclusion as a layman?
Those so trained speak with a totally disproportionate amount of confidence on these topics given how little definitive conclusions the academic apparatus actually offers.
I wonder if perhaps academic philosophy is going to turn out to be the last religion to die. Murder/suicide?
Ways of clarifying questions to which there is going to be no indisputable answer. Ways of weighing up the costs and benefits of coming out firmly on one side or another. Ways of understanding the confusion that underlies some questions before rushing into giving answers.
A philosopher who fights confidently and consistently for an untenable position is also doing a service by showing up the epistemic cost of a theory. This is part of what Austin meant in paying tribute to the philosopher who makes a "first-water, ground-floor mistake".
There are plenty of places to go for undisputed answers to difficult questions. E.g. sign up for Twitter and block everything you disagree with. Job done.
All of which are accomplished with careful thought, academic philosophy isnt necessary.
Its not like there are a minority of disputes like in other fields, its all but one of the major issues philosophy is supposed to address! Centuries on some of these!
Quoting Cuthbert
Its not about an undisputed answer, I understand that dissenting opinions exist in all areas of study.
Look at this study/poll, its an even split on the majority of issues. It shows that academic philosophy is the mastabatory exercise of wishy washy airheads that the public at large has always taken it for.
Millenia. I'm thinking about Athens. The philosopher can be seen as a wishy washy airhead, as you say - Thales falling into a well because he's looking up at the stars. Another stereotype is the philosopher as undermining common sense and received wisdom and morality - Socrates corrupting the young by questioning accepted values. A third image is of the philosopher as an intellectual conjuror and trickster - the Sophist, able to persuade us that black is white. Perhaps there is room also for the one who is a careful thinker - and the world will be a better place when the rulers become careful thinkers or careful thinkers become rulers (to adapt Plato).
There is yet another category, which is the philosopher living their philosophy of the good life - the sage, prophet or mystic. That is very out of fashion, although I would cite Peter Singer as a great example of the rare breed.
I agree, that is why ive attempted a distinction between all of that and academic philosophy.
Trite.
Can you locate a similar survey in some other discipline, and so demonstrate that there is no similar bifurcation?
Again, and as acknowledged by the editors, the choice of questions is arbitrary. it may well be set to find those that have toughly equal presentation on both sides.
If you would maintain that this is something more than a bias in question selection, you will have to do some more work.
No need for a survey, such is the obviousness of the examples in other disciplines. We would first have to agree which other disciplines are fair comparisons.
Quoting Banno
So the survey is the joke. I see.
Quoting Banno
I dont think its out of line to take the survey at face value. Maybe it shows nothing of value, but if its arbitrary and biased and you decided to share it then maybe you have some work to do.
Whatever.
What? I felt like those were fair points.
I don't think academic vs non-academic is the place to put the boundary. Peter Singer is an academic, for example. There is a lot of woolly thinking outside the academe and a lot of sharp thinking inside it.
But I have some sympathy with your complaint. I admit I graduated in 1979 with the thought - "Now Wittgenstein has proved the vacuousness of metaphysics I suppose that's the end of it." But still we debate whether the lump of clay and the statue are one thing or two. It's partly because the confusions arise from deep problems with our thought and language which will repeatedly resurface. I'm prepared to admit that it's partly a desire to play with ideas just because they are there. You put it more derogatorily but I don't entirely reject the complaint.
I would say that says more about Pinker than in does about academia. I think you are talking about whats being brought to academia from outside its confines, leaving my point about academia itself standing.
What has academic philosophy taught its students if most of the main issues cannot be decided by that education?
Quoting Cuthbert
I tend to agree that there are deeper problems with thought and language when it comes to philosophy, but this falls under the purview of academic philosophys responsibility.
What would we say about geology if there was close to an even split between about how old the earth is, how mountains are formed, whether or not the ice age created modern waterways and whether or not diamonds form from coal? We would say what a joke, get your shit together geology.
I could have made my point in less harshly but it seems like we have a harsh reality about academic philosophy on our hands. Also, I meant it lightheartedly if that matters. I should have used some emojos I guess.
Would we? How superficial of us, thinking that unanswered questions mean sloppiness.
Quoting DingoJones
Pinker is a different philosopher, distinguished by his large mop of curly hair. Peter Singer has lost a lot of his hair, along with a big slice of his income.
Quoting DingoJones
:flower:
Quoting Cuthbert
My take on this is that philosophical questions may well have been correctly answered already. But we don't have a way of settling the dispute easily. In science, the scientific method eventually compels dissenters, at least amongst scientists (not flat earthers). In philosophy, it's easier to maintain a dissenting position, as consulting the physical world rarely settles the dispute.
Well that is my point if philosophy is so easy to dispute, so easily justifying of opposing views, isnt that a bit of a joke academically speaking? An academic discipline so lacking doesnt seem to belong.
I mean, if such a poll were to be taken before the 17th century, most European philosophers would likely be dualists.
And the determinism thing continues to be a bit puzzling. It made sense in Newton's time, but now we know that physics tells us that the world is at bottom probabilistic, not deterministic.
Either way, I doubt physics tells us anything about free will.
Still, it's good information to have. Thanks for sharing.
Im not saying philosophy is science. I'm talking about academic value. Im open minded as to what would constitute a fair comparison, as some academic disciplines (like mathematics) lend themselves to more concrete conclusions.
How can you call academic philosophy rigorous when the results of that rigor are inconclusive on so many major philosophical issues?
The results are conclusive. Many philosophical problems have been correctly solved. It's just we can't agree on which ones and in what way, because there we don't have a clear enough objective thing that we all have equal access to that we can consult.
How do you know they have been correctly solved?
How can you call a result conclusive when there is an near even split about what the conclusion is?!
Because the solution in question is the most reasonable of the options.
Quoting DingoJones
Conclusive according to other academic standards. I previously used a geology example: in geology there is disagreement about specific details, as with philosophy. Fair. We could go down the list until eventually to major questions, in geology whether the world is flat or round for example. If for all such major questions about geology it was a near split, geology would have a big problem. If roughly half the geologists thought the earth was flat, geology would quickly become a punchline. A joke.
This poll shows that philosophy has this problem. The experts have spent centuries or more and still cant give us a reliable conclusion (the weight of all the experts on one side or the other, rather than more close to evenly divided).
Half of the the experts have given us a reliable conclusion, and the other half haven't.
oh ya? Which half? :shade:
Obviously we are talking about all the experts, not half of them. What you said makes no sense in the context of this discussion.
The correct half