The PhilPapers Fallacy (Part 7 of 9)
Table of contents
Part 2: Relevant expertise matters
Part 4: Selection effects matter
Part 5: How PhilPapers respondents interpreted the survey questions matters
Part 7: Philosophical fashions matter
Part 8: Demographic, social, and cultural forces matter
2.6 Philosophical fashions matter
This category will be brief, but deserves greater development. Consider the results of the PhilPapers survey at any given time. To what extent do the proportions of philosophers endorsing a particular view reflect a field that is settling down and gradually converging on particular conclusions? What if, instead, what we observe at any given time reflects a host of social and cultural forces that have little to do with the field moving towards any particular “end of history,” and instead reflects current fashions or trends? Panpsychism is popular right now. Will it be popular in twenty years? Virtue ethics was largely ignored, only to enjoy a renaissance in the past few decades. Prominent figures and ideas serve as lightning rods around which discussion gravitates: Rawls in political philosophy, for instance.
To what extent, at any given time, is the state of the field, and the views held by those within the field, reflect transient waves of popularity for particular topics and perspectives on those topics? I’m not sure, but it would not surprise me if the answer is “quite a lot.”