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Your Score: N-A-R

You scored 66% Non-Reductionism, 66% Epistemological Absolutism, and 33% Moral Objectivism!

You are an N-A-R: a metaphysical Non-Reductionist, an epistemological Absolutist, and a moral Relativist. If you are simply dying inside to figure out what all this mumbo-jumbo means, then simply continue reading.

Metaphysics: Non-Reductionism (Idealism or Realism)
In metaphysics, my test measures your tendency towards Reductionism or
Non-Reductionism. As a Non-Reductionist, you recognize that reality is
not necessarily simple or unified, and you thus tend to produce a
robust ontology instead of carelessly shaving away hypothetical
entities that reflect our philosophical experiences. My test recognizes
two types of Non-Reductionists: Idealists and Realists.

1. Idealists believe that reality is fundamentally
unknowable. All we can ever know is the world of sense experience,
thought, and other phenomena which are only distorted reflections of an
ultimate (or noumenal) reality. Kant, one of the most significant
philosophers in history, theorized that human beings perceive reality
in such a way that they impose their own mental frameworks and
categories upon reality, fully distorting it. Reality for Kant is
unconceptualized and not subject to any of the categories our minds
apply to it. Idealists are non-reductionists because they recognize
that the distinction between phenomenal reality and ultimate reality
cannot be so easily discarded or unified into a single reality. They
are separate and distinct, and there is no reason to suppose the one
mirrors the other. Major philosophical idealists include Kant and
Fichte.

If your views are different from the above, then you may be a Realist.
2. Realists
deny the validity of sloppy metaphysical reductions, because they feel
that there is no reason to suspect that reality reflects principles of
parsimony or simplicity. Realism is the most common-sensical of the
metaphysical views. It doesn't see reality as a unity or as reducible
to matter or mind, nor does it see reality as divided into a phenomenal
world of experience and an unknowable noumenal world of
things-in-themselves. Realist metaphysics emphasizes that reality is
for the most part composed of the things we observe and think. On the
question of the existence of universals, for instance, a realist will
assert that while universals do not physically exist, the relations
they describe in particulars are as real as the particular things
themselves, giving universals a type of reality. Thus, no reduction is
made. On the mind-body problem, realists tend to believe that minds and
bodies both exist, and the philosophical problems involved in reducing
mind to matter or matter to mind are too great to warrant such a
reduction. Finally, realists deny that reality is ultimately a Unity or
Absolute, though they recognize that reality can be viewed as a Unity
when we consider the real relations between the parts as constituting
this unity--but it doesn't mean that the world isn't also made up of
particular things. Aristotle and Popper are famous realists.

*****

Epistemology: Absolutism (Rationalism or Pragmatism)
My test measures one's tendency towards Absolutism or Skepticism in
regards to epistemology. As an Absolutist, you believe that objective
knowledge is possible given the right approach, and you deny the claims
of skeptical philosophers who insist that we can never have knowledge
of ultimate reality. The two types of Absolutists recognized by my test
are Rationalists and Pragmatists.

1. Rationalists believe that the use of reason
ultimately provides the best route to truth. A rationalist usually
defines truth as a correspondence between propositions and reality,
taking the common-sense route. Also, rationalists tend to believe that
knowledge of reality is made possible through certain foundational
beliefs. This stance is known as foundationalism. A foundationalist
believes that, because we cannot justify the truth of every statement
in an infinite regress, we ultimately reach a foundation of knowledge.
This foundation is composed of a priori truths, like mathematics and
logic, as well as undoubtable truths like one's belief in his or her
own existence. The belief that experiences and memories are veridical
is also part of the foundation. Thus, for a rationalist knowledge of
reality is made possible through our foundational beliefs, which we do
not need to justify because we find them to be undoubtable and
self-evident. In regards to science, a rationalist will tend to
emphasize the foundational assumptions of scientific inquiry as prior
to and more important than scientific inquiry itself. If science does
lead to truth, it is only because it is based upon the assumption of
certain rational principles such as "Every event is caused" and "The
future will resemble the past". Philosophy has a wide representation of
philosophical rationalists--Descartes, Spinoza, Liebniz, and many
others.

If that didn't sound like your own views, then you are most likely the other type of Absolutist: the Pragmatist.
Epistemological Pragmatists are fundamentally identified by
their definition of truth. Truth is, on this view, merely a measure of
a proposition's success in inquiry. This view is a strictly scientific
notion of truth. A proposition can be called true if it leads to
successful predictions or coheres best with the observed facts about
the world. Thus, for the pragmatist, knowledge of reality is possible
through scientific reasoning. A pragmatist emphasizes man's
fallibility, and hence takes baby-steps towards knowledge through
scientific methodology. Any truth claim for a pragmatist is open to
revision and subject to change--if empirical observations lead us to
call even logical rules into question (like quantum physics has done
for the law of the excluded middle), then we can and should abandon
even these supposed a priori and "absolutely certain" logical rules if
they do not accord with our testing and refuting of our various
propositions. As a consequence of this, a pragmatist doesn't feel that
scientific knowledge is based upon unfounded assumptions that are taken
to be true without any sort of justification--rather, they believe that
the successes of scientific inquiry have proved that its assumptions
are well-founded. For instance, the assumption of science that the
future will be like the past is adequately shown by the amazing success
of scientific theories in predicting future events--how else could this
be possible unless the assumption were true? Pragmatism borrows
elements from realism and yet attempts to account for the critiques
made by skeptics and relativists. It is essentially a type of
philosophical opportunism--it borrows the best stances from a large
number of philosophical systems and attempts to discard the problems of
these systems by combining them with others. Famous pragmatists of this
type are Peirce and Dewey.

*****

Ethics: Relativism (Subjectivism or Emotivism)
My test measures one's tendency towards moral Objectivism or moral
Relativism in regards to ethics. As a moral Relativist, you tend to see
moral choices as describing a subject's reaction to a moral object or
situation, and not as a property of the moral object itself. You may
also feel that moral words are meaningless because they do not address
any empirical fact about the world. My test recognizes two types of
moral relativists--Subjectivists and Emotivists.

1. Subjectivists see individual or collective desires
as defining a situation's or object's moral worth. Thus, the subject,
not the object itself, determines the value. Subjectivists recognize
that social rules, customs, and morality have been wide-ranging and
quite varied throughout history among various cultures. As a result,
Subjectivism doesn't attempt to issue hard and fast rules for judging
the moral worth of things. Instead, it recognizes that what we consider
"good" and "right" is not bound by any discernable rule. There is no one
trait that makes an act good or right, because so many different kinds
of things have been called good and right. In regards to the definition
of "good" or "right", a Subjectivist will tend to define it as whatever
a particular person or group of people desire. They do not define it
merely as "happiness" or "pleasure", for instance, because sometimes we
desire to do things that do not produce pleasure, and because we don't
consider all pleasurable things good. Furthermore, Subjectivists
recognize the validity of consequentialism in that sometimes we refer
to consequences as good and bad--but they also recognize that our
intentions behind an action, or the means to the end, can also
determine an act's moral worth. Again, there is no one rule to
determine these things. Hence the relativism of moral Subjectivism. The
most well-known of the subjectivists is Nietzsche.

If that didn't sound like your position, then you are probably the other variety of moral Relativist--the Emotivist.
Emotivists are moral Relativists only in a very slanted sense,
because they actually deny that words about morality have any meaning
at all. An Emotivist would probably accept Hume's argument that it is
impossible to derive an "ought" from an "is"--no factual state of
affairs can logically entail any sort of moral action.
Furthermore, a emotivist's emphasis on scientific (and hence empirical)
verification and testing quickly leads to the conclusion that concepts
such as "good" and "right" don't really describe any real qualities or
relations. Science is never concerned with whether a particular state
of affairs is moral or right or good--and an emotivist feels much the
same way. Morality is thus neither objective or subjective for the
emotivist--it is without any meaning at all, a sort of vague
ontological fiction that is merely a symbol for our emotional responses
to certain events. Famous emotivists include Ayer and other positivists
associated with the Vienna Circle.

*****

As you can see, when your philosophical position is narrowed
down there are so many potential categories that an OKCupid test cannot
account for them all. But, taken as very broad categories or
philosophical styles, you are best characterized as an N-A-R. Your
exact philosophical opposite would be an R-S-O.

About the Author

Saint_gasoline is a crazed madman who spends all of his time writing
OKCupid tests and ranting about philosophy and science. If you are
interested in reading more of his insane ramblings, or seeing his
deliciously trite webcomic, go to SaintGasoline.com.

Link: The Sublime Philosophical Crap Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test