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Jack comments on What do professional philosophers believe, and why? - Less Wrong Discussion

31 Post author: RobbBB 01 May 2013 02:40PM

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Comment author: Jack 01 May 2013 04:27:30PM 4 points [-]

We should give the same survey to LW.

Comment author: endoself 01 May 2013 05:28:21PM 9 points [-]

The problem with that is that people here aren't familiar with many of the concepts. For example, I like Hume's work on the philosophy of science, but I'm not a philosopher and I have no idea what it means for a position to be Humean or non-Humean. I think more people would answer without really understanding what they are answering than would take the time to figure out the questions.

Comment author: [deleted] 01 May 2013 05:52:29PM 3 points [-]

I would argue that this was a problem for the professional philosophers who took this survey as well. A moral philosopher may have a passing knowledge of the philosophy of time, but not enough to defend the particular position she reports in the survey.

Comment author: Jack 01 May 2013 05:30:44PM 2 points [-]

Yes. It would be important to at least have respondents provide some self-assessment of how well they understand each question.

Comment author: RobbBB 01 May 2013 05:52:09PM 1 point [-]

I agree. I think it would make more sense to just have discussions about whichever of the topics interested people, rather than having a fixed poll. If there were such a poll, it should be one designed to encourage 'other' views and frequent revisions of one's view.

I might make something like this at some point, if only as a pedagogical tool or conversation-starter. At the moment, I have good introductions and links explaining all the PhilPapers questions up here.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 01 May 2013 06:39:05PM 1 point [-]
Comment author: AspiringRationalist 02 May 2013 03:17:21AM 2 points [-]

Glancing at the survey, it looks like it contains a large amount of jargon that although very likely accessible to professional philosophers, most people here (myself included) would not know what most of the questions are asking, so I don't think it would be practical to do this survey as is among LW.

Comment author: Jack 01 May 2013 06:47:31PM 1 point [-]

Right, but I meant in an accessible way that would let us analyze the data-- e.g. a google survey.