shminux comments on What do professional philosophers believe, and why? - Less Wrong Discussion
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I'd say the Anti-Naturalism and Anti-Realism clusters are obviously wrong. Trekophobia and Logical Conventionalism are less obvious, though they clearly go against a lot of the basic views and tendencies on LW. Objectivism and Rationalism are more debatable, and Externalism seems the most LWy on a cursory look. But even Externalism only gets a couple of things consistently right, at best. (And in a fairly arbitrary manner.)
Perhaps I under-emphasized a really crucial point: All of these clusters should be criticized not just for the views you see, but for the ones you don't see. Why don't Externalists knock physicalism out of the ballpark? Why aren't Rationalists winning at Newcomb's Problem 80, 90, 100% of the time? Defensibility is an indefensibly low standard; expecting mediocrity is expecting too little even of high school philospohy students, to say nothing of those who have devoted 30, 40, 50 years to grasping these topics, with all the resources of human civilization at their disposal.
Too slow.
I wonder what your definition of obviously wrong is. Is it instrumental, like two-boxing on Newcomb? Bayesian, like theism failing the Occam's razor? Or something else? Or a combination?
Generally it's Bayesian. If at this point in the history of civilization statements like 'there are chairs' don't get to count as obviously right, or 'physics be damned, I don't need on stinkin' causes for my volition!' as obviously wrong, then I confess I no longer find it obvious what 'obvious' is even supposed to mean.
I'm not saying Anti-Naturalists and Anti-Realists aren't extremely sophisticated, or in a number of cases well worth reading; sophistication is compatible with obvious wrongness.