What are the philosophical views of contemporary professional philosophers?We surveyed many professional philosophers in order to help determine their views on thirty central philosophical issues. This article documents the results. It also reveals correlations among philosophical views and between these views and factors such as age, gender, and nationality. A factor analysis suggests that an individual's philosophical views factor into a few underlying factors that predict much of the variation in those views. The results of a meta-survey also suggest that many of the results of the survey are surprising: philosophers as a whole have quite inaccurate beliefs about the distribution of philosophical views in the profession.
This paper compares and relates tracking and phenomenal theories of intentionality with respect to the issue of naturalism. Tracking theories explicitly aim to naturalize intentionality, while phenomenal intentionality theories do not. It might seem that considerations of naturalism count in favor of tracking theories. We survey key considerations relevant to this claim, including some motivations for and objections to the two kinds of theories. We conclude by suggesting that naturalistic considerations may in fact support phenomenal theories over tracking theories.Some mental states are "of" or about something. For example, your belief that Pegasus has wings seems to be about Pegasus and his wingedness, and your visual experience of a cup presents or is about a cup. This directness of mental states is intentionality. Intentional states are states that exhibit intentionality; what they represent is their content.The 1980s and 1990s saw the rise of tracking theories of intentionality, theories that aim to understand intentionality in terms of tracking or suitably co-varying with items in the environment. These theories have been motivated in good part by a perceived need to "naturalize" intentionality. Though tracking theories faced various challenges, many were considered to be merely technical, and research proceeded with much optimism. Tracking theories arguably remain the most popular theories of intentionality today.The late 90s to the present saw the rise of a very different kind of theory of intentionality, phenomenal intentionality theories. These theories aim to understand intentionality in terms of another mental phenomenon, phenomenal consciousness, the "what it's like" of mental states. Unlike tracking theories, which take intentionality to be a matter of how we are related to features of our environments, most phenomenal intentionality theories are radically internalistic. And unlike tracking theories, phenomenal intentionality theories are not primarily concerned with naturalizing intentionality.It might seem that the recent interest in phenomenal intentionality theories represents a turn away from naturalism. Our aim in this paper is to survey the considerations relevant to this claim. Section 1 clarifies the notion of intentionality. Section 2 describes tracking theories and their goal of naturalizing intentionality. Section 3 describes objections to tracking theories. Section 4 describes phenomenal intentionality theories. Finally, section 5 overviews different conceptions of naturalism and suggests that considerations of naturalism may in fact favor phenomenal intentionality theories over tracking theories.
One sometimes believes a proposition without grasping it. For example, a complete achromat might believe that ripe tomatoes are red without grasping this proposition. My aim in this paper is to shed light on the difference between merely believing a proposition and grasping it. I focus on two possible theories of grasping: the inferential theory, which explains grasping in terms of inferential role, and the phenomenal theory, which explains grasping in terms of phenomenal consciousness. I argue that the phenomenal theory is more plausible than the inferential theory.
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