Tags
analytic philosophy, Atheism and Agnosticism, Continental Philosophy, God, meta-ethics, moral realism, Philosophy, postmodernism, scientific realism, Theism
The PhilPapers Survey was carried out in November 2009, and surveyed some 3226 respondents, including 1803 philosophy faculty members and/or PhDs and 829 philosophy graduate students. The respondents were questioned on everything from realism to metaethics to the existence of zombies. But something interesting emerges when you compare the “Target Faculty” (faculties at top-ranked universities) against lesser lights and newbies coming up from the ranks.
Check this: for “Tradition”, the respondents had to choose between various options, of which the main options were Analytic and Continental. See the difference between the old fossils and the new and rising stars:
Target faculty: Analytic 91%; Continental 4%
Philosophy faculty or PhD: Analytic 81%; Continental 7%
Philosophy graduate student: Analytic 85%; Continental 10%
Philosophy undergraduate: Analytic 74%; Continental 18%
And for meta-ethics, here’s the differences between moral realists and anti-realists, for the same range of people:
Target faculty: Moral realism 56%; Moral anti-realism 28%
Philosophy faculty or PhD: Moral realism 56%; Moral anti-realism 28%
Philosophy graduate student: Moral realism 50%; Moral anti-realism 35%
Philosophy undergraduate: Moral realism 48%; Moral anti-realism 36%
And science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?
Target faculty: scientific realism 75%; scientific anti-realism 13%
Philosophy faculty or PhD: scientific realism 70%; scientific anti-realism 16%
Philosophy graduate student: scientific realism 62%; scientific anti-realism 21%
Philosophy undergraduate: scientific realism 54%; scientific anti-realism 25%
And what about God: theism or atheism?
Target faculty: atheism 73%; theism15%
Philosophy faculty or PhD: atheism 70%; theism 16%
Philosophy graduate student: atheism 64%; theism 21%
Philosophy undergraduate: atheism 62%; theism 20%
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
The Dunedin School 
Interesting trends–especially in regards to theism.
Great blog!
AD
http://www.babelblog.net
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Interesting survey. This needs to be done over time. When I first looked at it I thought it indicated a kind of transition of beliefs as students progressed through tertiary education. However it could equally indicate the changing fashions of belief between ages groups/generations. Are these Anglo-American universities?
The demographics are here: http://philpapers.org/surveys/demographics.pl
I thought it illuminating, that with no apparent trend, around a quarter of all respondents believe in zombies… Does this mean they believe in NT Wright, who can only be a walking undead himself in order to know that Matt 27.51-2 is true?
I think that to speak meaningfully of a trend we’d need to observe change over time. For example, we’d need to see the percentages for the faculty when they were undergrad, then postgrad, then their present day stats.
Ditto for postgrads: How would they have answered when the first started their studies?
Like you, I can’t claim to have the info to say that there’s a trend, but there are (at least) a couple of tends. One is not relly a trend, but a prediction (it’s the claim made in this blog): that we will see a shift toward continental philosophy when the current undergrads become postgrads and faculty members.
Another possibility is this: When students are naive, they favour the pretentiousness of continental philosophy. Then some of them succeed, graduate and become postgrad and faculty. These are the ones who are more inclined towards analytical philosophy.
See what I mean? As Johnny five put it, what we need is “more input.”
Glenn (and Bruce before) – yes, that would be the logical way to argue for a trend.