What do philosophers believe?

David Bourget*, David J. Chalmers

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    330 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    What are the philosophical views of contemporary professional philosophers? We surveyed many professional philosophers in order to help determine their views on 30 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 views on these issues factor into a few underlying components that predict much of the variation in those views. The results of a metasurvey 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.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)465-500
    Number of pages36
    JournalPhilosophical Studies
    Volume170
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Sept 2014

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