A sociological survey of the fashions of analytic philosophers?
The following is a commentary on something called ‘The 2020 PhilPapers Survey’. It was edited by the philosophers David Chalmers and David Bourget.
This is the editors’ own summary of the survey:
“This site summarizes the results of the 2020 PhilPapers Survey, which surveyed the philosophical views of 1785 English-speaking philosophers from around the world on 100 philosophical questions.
“The 2020 PhilPapers Survey was a follow-up to the 2009 PhilPapers Survey. The 2020 survey increased the number of the questions from 30 to 100 and expanded the target population. It also collected longitudinal information on how philosophers’ views have changed since 2009.”
Why the Survey?
A survey of philosophers’ “views” may not seem too strange. Yet it may well seem strange (at least to some philosophers and others) that two philosophers themselves (i.e., David Bourget and David Chalmers) carried out this survey. That said, considering that nowadays some (or even many) analytic philosophers do pay attention to what the sciences (not only cognitive science and physics) have to say on various matters, then perhaps this (to use the jargon) “empirical survey” is just such a thing. Of course, although (for want of a better word) surveying itself isn’t an actual science; surveys can still be conducted scientifically.
This still leaves us with the question: Why was this survey carried out?
Well, the surveyors themselves answer that question.
In their commentary, David Chalmers and David Bourget state that such surveys can be “today’s sociology [and] tomorrow’s history” — or at least they can be (or can become) like sociology and history.
So why are philosophers indulging in a case of sociology which may become tomorrow’s history?
Chalmers and Bourget state that they carried out their survey because it “may be of some use to future historians of philosophy”. In more detail, Chalmers and Bourget write:
“[T]he history of philosophy is often directly concerned with sociological matters, and data about today’s sociology may well be relevant to tomorrow’s history. [] The survey concerns philosophy, but it is not philosophy. If anything, it is an exercise in the sociology of philosophy. Sociology should not be confused with philosophy [].”
They continue:
“And certainly, survey votes are likely to be a poor guide to philosophical truth. Still, beliefs about the sociology of philosophy are often given a role in the practice of philosophy, in various ways.”
The main point here isn’t that this survey fails as philosophy — or even that it fails in any respect. It asks what purpose the head counting achieves — even when happily acknowledging that this survey isn’t supposed to be philosophy in the first place. (It can be doubted that anyone at all actually believes that this was Chalmers and Bourget’s attempt at — as it were — sociological philosophy.)
As for “the sociology of philosophy [being] given a role in the practice of philosophy” —this has very rarely been the case in virtually all analytic philosophy. Indeed many non-analytic philosophers have been keen to stress this fact — and have done so many times — about analytic philosophy and its traditions. (Admittedly, such philosophers usually mention analytic philosophers’ ignorance of the history of philosophy, rather than of the sociology of philosophy.)
So perhaps Chalmers and Bourget believe that the sociology of philosophy should be given a role in the practice of philosophy. That is, Chalmers and Bourget are taking a normative, not a descriptive, position on what analytic philosophers should do.
In that case, one may wonder why historians or sociologists of philosophy didn’t carry out this survey, rather than someone like David Chalmers. That is, Chalmers is most certainly not an historian or sociologist of philosophy. (He has has done a little metaphilosophy — see here.) And it’s also the case that the other editor, David Bourget, isn’t either. (It can be assumed — from the data — that Chalmers and Bourget are professional friends with strong academic connections in Australia and elsewhere.) All that said, it would of course be very unlikely that a sociologist could — or would — carry out such a survey when it includes highly-specific questions and details about technical issues and debates in analytic philosophy.
To sum this section up. Chalmers and Bourget mention sociology and history — yet only in relation to the purpose and nature of surveys such as their own…
But what about sociology and history when it comes to what philosophers actually believe?
Philosophical Fluctuations and Philosophical Fashions
Now the odd thing is that even though the central theme of this essay is one of philosophical fashion — that subject doesn’t seem to be the kind of sociology of philosophy which Chalmers and Bourget have in mind. Indeed their survey is an attempt to do something purely descriptive (despite the answers-to-critical-questions commentary referenced a moment ago) in that Chalmers and Bourget simply note such things as percentages and basic answer to questions. In other words, no sociological conclusions are made by Chalmers and Bourget.
One single example of the fluctuations (or changes in philosophical fashion) is cited in the survey itself.
In 2009, for example, there was a — swing to? - the position that there’s no such thing as free will. In 2020, on the other hand, there was a (to use Justin Weinberg’s words) “swing” away from “no free will”. That is, only 11 years later after 2009, there was a swing in the opposite direction.
But that’s just one example .
To use Justin Weinberg’s summary again (as found in his Daily Nous), there were also swings in the following directions too:
“towards not switching in trolley problem (bystander)
towards non-classical logic
towards non-cognitivism in moral judgment
away from invariantism regarding knowledge claims
towards Platonism about abstract objects”
So what do these swings tell us?
Is it largely a question of philosophical fashion?
Surely it can’t be about any new data.
So was it all about new and/or better arguments?
But that can’t be the case either.
That’s partly because it’s very possible that the pendulum will swing (back?) again by, say, 2030. (Unless, by 2030, there’ll be even better arguments which will help philosophers swing yet again.)
If it isn’t a swing in actual better or new arguments, then perhaps it’s simply a question of what subjects are concentrated upon by analytic philosophers. That is, these previous swings mightn’t have occurred because of new or stronger arguments, but simply because of what subjects were concentrated upon during the period 2009 to 2020 . (It’s also a question of the proportions of philosophers who were doing the concentrating.)
After all, Chalmers and Bourget didn’t select which analytic philosophers were asked which particular questions. That is, all the philosophers in the survey answered the same “100 philosophical questions”. Thus some of those philosophers questioned would have known a fair bit about, say, invariantism or Platonism — and others would have known next to nothing about these subjects. And, in that ten-year period, the proportion of those analytic philosophers who knew a lot about, say, non-classical logic (or who didn’t know a lot about it) would have changed from 2009 to 2020 too…
Thus philosophical fashion raises its head again.
So this isn’t only about swings (i.e., based on arguments) from one position to another: it’s also about various subjects becoming popular and then ceasing to be popular. That popularity (or lack thereof) of certain philosophical subjects will at least partly determine the nature of the aforementioned swings. Indeed, if one takes note of the history of analytic philosophy in the 20th century, then some philosophical fashions were very short-lived indeed!
Take reference — which was a relatively long-lived philosophical fashion.
There must have been hundreds — probably thousands — of papers and articles written on that subject between, roughly, the 1970s and the 1990s. Now it’s hardly covered at all. (This isn’t to say that no analytic philosopher touches this subject anymore.) And possible worlds were also all the rage for roughly the same period. And what about those sense-data which became the primary focus of large chunks of analytic philosophy in the first half of the 20th century? So I was surprised to see any reference at all to “sense-datum theory” in the survey. (That said, this position is only endorsed by 4.99% of analytic philosophers.)
More Percentages
In any case, here are some more percentages selected by Justin Weinberg from the survey:
“81.7% think abortion is sometimes permissible
75.1% think capital punishment is impermissible
The most popular view of consciousness is functionalism with 33% of respondents supporting it
51.3% accept some version of the extended mind thesis
50.9% endorse revising gender categories
40.4% endorse eliminating race categories
64.2% think human genetic engineering is sometimes permissible
44.9% would choose immortality, 41.3% would not, while 13.6 selected “other” as a response
Naturalist realism edged out non-naturalist realism and constructivism as the most popular metaethics
Almost 30% support capitalism, but 53% support socialism, while close to 20% choose “other”
56% think there is “a lot” of philosophical knowledge and 32.5% think there is “a little,” while paradox did not stop 3.6% from saying there is “none”
Respondents were about evenly divided on whether time travel is metaphysically possible
Only 2% thought particles could be conscious”
In terms of panpsychism, 2% seems very low. Yet I suspect that in 2009 it would have been even lower — perhaps 1% or even less! (I couldn’t find any reference to “panpsychism” in the 2009 survey.) That means that the number of analytic philosophers who believe that “particles could be conscious” might have doubled in ten years — even though it is now only 2%!
So fashion may be an issue even when it comes to panpsychism's seemingly low mark.
Similarly with functionalism.
According to the survey, 33% of analytic philosophers support this position in the philosophy of mind. This percentage figure may seem fairly high. Yet in functionalism’s heyday (say, the 1970s to the 1980s), I suspect that the percentage would have been a lot higher than 33%.
So how important are sociology and history when it comes to these percentages?
More relevantly and concretely, how important is living and working within a university environment when it comes to what view a professional (academic) philosopher has on, say, (to use phrases from the survey) “gender categories”, “capitalism and socialism”, “race categories”, etc? Is it really all about the (as its often put) “strength of philosophical arguments” that, for example, “53% [of analytic philosophers] support socialism”, 44% favour egalitarianism and only 13% favour libertarianism (i.e., not of the kind held in “free will” debate)? Alternatively, are these positions or views just as much to do with the sociology of universities than they have to do with arguments or data?
Of course academic analytic philosophers will have advanced arguments for these views. Yet their arguments are still (as it were) embedded within — and perhaps largely spring from — particular university (i.e., sociological) environments.
Philosophy By Consensus or By Fashion?
One other claim which Chalmers and Bourget make is odd too. They write:
“[P]hilosophers often appeal to sociological claims about the distributions of views among philosophers, for example in justifying which views should be taken seriously, and it makes sense for these claims to be well-grounded.”
Personally, I’ve very rarely come across philosophers “appeal[ing] to sociological claims about the distributions of views among philosophers”. (Actually, I don’t believe that I’ve ever done so.) Prima facie, appeal to sociological claims in an odd thing for a philosopher to do — even if such a thing does occasionally occur. After all, adverting (or even deferring) to science ( à la naturalists such as Quine) is one thing — but appealing to sociological claims and caring about the distributions of views among philosophers are very different things.
So do these distributions of views among philosophers impact on what philosophers actually believe? Wouldn’t that be an example of (as it were) body-count philosophy?
In addition, these distributions of views among philosophers apparently (according to Chalmers and Bourget) “justify which views should be taken seriously”. Surely that can’t — or simply shouldn’t — be the case. This seems to be a commitment to philosophical-truth-by-consensus. Indeed it may even be a commitment to philosophical-truth-by-fashion. (Remember that Chalmers and Bourget answered these points earlier in this piece— scroll back up.) And even though various degrees of consensus — as is the case with most of the sciences — are indeed important in philosophy (i.e., in terms of debate, shared languages, techniques, etc.), what should be “taken seriously” (or not) surely can’t be a matter of large distributions of particular views and the focus on particular subjects.
Chalmers and Bourget also tell us that these large distributions of views among analytic philosophers — at least partly? — contribute to certain philosophical positions and subjects being “well-grounded” (i.e., “it makes sense for these claims to be well-grounded”). Yet, as the survey itself shows, professional (or academic) philosophical opinions often change from decade to decade (sometimes from year to year) and the subjects concentrated upon do so too. Thus if such philosophical views are indeed well-grounded, then why the obvious and frequent fluctuations in both philosophical views and in the philosophical subjects studied?
So does that mean that philosophical fashion — at least to some degree — determines these large distributions of (the same) views and therefore also their supposed well-groundedness?
A Peircian Convergence on the Truth?
Chalmers and Bouget also believe that
“if philosophy has any tendency to converge to the truth, then philosophers’ views might provide some guidance about the truth of philosophical views”.
Here again this survey itself stresses (if implicitly) philosophical —quite possibly random — fluctuations. So it’s odd that Chalmers and Bourget should use the words “if philosophy has any tendency to converge to the truth”. Those words are odd because philosophical history will show that this has rarely — if ever — occurred. To put that another way: if philosophy does ever converge on the truth, then it (at least in some areas) would have already done so — many times!
So in which cases has this philosophical convergence on the truth actually occurred?
Of course Chalmers and Bourget themselves recognise these questions and points when they continue with the following words:
“It is not clear whether philosophy tends to converge to the truth [].”
It can now be said that there are certain sections of philosophy which achieve a degree of consensus (or that there are large “distributions”) on a given subject and on (as it’s often put) “what constitutes a problem”. Yet even these examples of consensus don’t usually last for very long. And that’s to forget the many other philosophers who were never part of such (fashionable?) consensuses.
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Notes:
(1)
That’s an interesting list of which Philosophical Big Names the surveyed analytic philosophers identify with.
A philosopher who’s been dead for over two thousand years (i.e., Aristotle) is at the top of the list. Karl Marx comes above Socrates, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Davidson, Putnam. Leibniz, Locke, Popper, and many others. And poor old Michael Dummett is right down at the bottom of the list — side by side with Gilles Deleuze!
(2) I’ve always found it odd that sociologists have rarely — if ever — conducted studies on universities and how they help — at least partly — determine what people (including academic philosophers) politically and philosophically believe. (That’s even though some stuff has been written about this subject by non-academics — i.e., by journalists, writers and commentators.)
I mention this because many sociologists are very keen to tell us why particular classes, social groups and/or individuals believe what it is they believe. And such sociologists also stress how particular environments impact on the political, philosophical and/or religious beliefs of various social groups and individuals. So why isn’t all this also the case when it comes to those students and professional academics who’ve been deeply embedded in universities for a few years — or even for decades?
In addition, I personally have come across zero sociological studies of… sociologists. That said, I suspect that some such studies do exist… somewhere.
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