1 Introduction

Philosophy has always been a field of great controversy. Hegel compared the history of philosophy to a “battlefield covered with the bones of the dead” (Hegel, 1995, p. 17). It is difficult to reach a general consensus or to draw a definite conclusion in philosophy. And even when possible, it can only be achieved through evidence, reasoning, argumentation, and interpretation rather than a vote. Thus, for the development and improvement of philosophy, it seems to be of little benefit to conduct questionnaire surveys and statistics among the community of professional philosophers on various philosophical views and positions.

However, an empirical study on the academic views of philosophers, conducted by David Bourget and David Chalmers in 2009, has attracted a great deal of attention. The study invited professional philosophers from nearly 100 philosophy departments in English-speaking countries to complete an online questionnaire containing 30 important philosophical questions in the core areas of analytic philosophy, such as metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. The paper based on this study, What do philosophers believe? (Bourget & Chalmers, 2014), was published in September 2014 and has been cited almost 700 times as of March 2023. Encouraged by this success, Bourget and Chalmers launched a larger-scale study in 2020, expanding the subjects to philosophy practitioners worldwide who have published philosophical articles in English and increasing the number of philosophical questions in the questionnaire to one hundred (Bourget & Chalmers, 2023).

What is the worth of such surveys? Why does it arouse this much attention and discussion? Firstly, there are always intrinsic and deeply rooted interactions between philosophy and the epochs in which it resides. These interactions are reflected specifically in the views and positions about important philosophical issues. Such empirical investigations can help to understand and grasp the characteristics of the eras embodied in philosophy more accurately. Secondly, it is pretty common that many different points of view emerge on the same philosophical issue. Comparing the number of proponents of different positions can indirectly reflect the strengths and weaknesses of different views and positions in a certain period of time, which allows different camps to better know themselves and each other, assess the distribution of the burden of proof, and adjust their attack and defense strategies in a targeted manner. Thirdly, investigating the changes in the views and positions of the same group of philosophers over time (e.g., the two surveys mentioned above that were carried out ten years apart) can provide reliable empirical evidence for further study on the internal and external factors that led to such changes.

Notably, the two questionnaire surveys conducted by Bourget and Chalmers only provided a broad overview of contemporary analytic philosophy in English-speaking countries. Analytic philosophy has been the dominant philosophical approach in English-speaking countries for most of the past century. And it has also influenced non-English-speaking countries, including continental Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The questions and options listed in the questionnaires were mainly issues discussed in contemporary analytic philosophy, and the participants included were primarily practitioners in the field of analytic philosophy in Anglo-American countries. Although the survey in 2020 was expanded in scope, for example, by sending the questionnaire to 83 philosophers from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and 17 responses were received, this is clearly neither enough to represent the views of philosophers in China on relevant issues nor to reflect the current state of research on analytic philosophy in China.

Analytic philosophy has been introduced to China for more than a century. Before 1920, Zhang Shenfu wrote and published a series of articles in China introducing Bertrand Russell’s theories and later translated Wittgenstein’s book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus into Chinese. Liang Qichao invited Bertrand Russell to visit China in October 1920, and then, Russell gave about 20 keynote lectures during his ten months in China. After that, Chinese scholars such as Jin Yuelin and Hong Qian made remarkable contributions to the spread and development of analytic philosophy in China. Due to political and social changes, the research of analytic philosophy in China was interrupted for decades, and it was not reborn until the reform and opening-up process in the late 1970s. Over the past 40 years, the education, research, and spread of analytic philosophy in China have obtained prodigious achievement. Moreover, it has been increasingly vibrant and active in recent years, demonstrating its growing influence within the Chinese philosophical circle.

Inspired by the research of Bourget and Chalmers, we adopted a similar questionnaire and conducted a survey on the group of analytic philosophers in China. Conducting this comparative study serves two primary purposes. First, running an empirical study about the philosophical views and positions of analytic philosophers in China can be helpful to overview the development trajectory and research progress of analytic philosophy in China over the past half-century clearly, as well as to understand the current state of analytic philosophy in China explicitly. Second, comparing the attitudes of philosophers in China with those of philosophers in English-speaking countries on the core issues of analytic philosophy and analyzing the potential causes behind the disparities, such as factors in socio-culture and particularities of the disciplinary development, can be useful to explore and comprehend the diversity of the development of analytic philosophy in various areas.

In this paper, we will first briefly review the two surveys conducted by Bourget and Chalmers. Then, we will introduce and explain the process and results of our survey on philosophers in China. Finally, we will compare and analyze the results of our study with Bourget and Chalmers’ and try to provide some possible explanations for the differences in philosophical views between philosophers in China and English-speaking countries.

2 Two surveys among English-speaking philosophers ten years apart

To figure out the views of contemporary philosophers on many core philosophical issues, Bourget and Chalmers conducted two large-scale online questionnaire surveys in 2009 and 2020. According to Bourget and Chalmers, “today’s sociology is tomorrow’s history” (Bourget & Chalmers, 2014, p. 466). In other words, a survey of contemporary philosophers’ views can provide a valuable resource for the history of philosophy in the future. At the same time, considering that minority views in philosophical discussions always call for more agreement for justification, empirical evidence of whether certain positions are widely accepted is also necessary to determine the burden of argument. Moreover, Bourget and Chalmers suggested that consensus in philosophical communities could, to some extent, point the way to the philosophical truth.

The 2009 survey collected data from professional philosophers working in 99 leading philosophy departments. Most of the departments were in English-speaking countries and had strength in analytic philosophy. The survey was conducted on the online platform PhilPapers, and the link to the questionnaire was emailed to 1972 philosophers, with 931 completing the questionnaire. Most of the questions in this questionnaire were from the five core areas of analytic philosophy: epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. Some of the questions concerned the choices among philosophical positions, such as whether to endorse a “naturalistic” or “non-naturalistic” position on meta-philosophical issues, while others concerned judgments about thought experiments, such as whether to “switch” or “not switch” in the trolley problem. All the questions were presented in a format with brief labels, such as “a priori knowledge: yes or no.”

The response options for the questions were divided into three main categories: “Accept” or “Lean towards” a particular position, “other,” and “skip this question.” And the option “other” includes the following: “accept both,” “reject both,” “accept an intermediate view,” “accept another alternative,” “the question is too unclear to answer,” “there is no fact of the matter,” “insufficiently familiar with the issue,” “agnostic/undecide,” “other.” Following is an example of the question and options (Bourget & Chalmers, 2014).

Mind: non-physicalism or physicalism?

  • Accept: non-physicalism

  • Lean toward: non-physicalism

  • Accept: physicalism

  • Lean toward: physicalism

  • Other【Click to select a sub-option】

Comment (Optional but appreciated):

Submit answer 【Button】

Or: Skip the question

It was found that although philosophers had no complete agreement on most issues, they were overwhelming (over 70%) positions on whether there is a priori knowledge, whether the analytic-synthetic distinction holds, and whether the external world exists. Moreover, the attitudes and views of philosophers on particular philosophical issues were not independent. They were often closely linked to positions on several other related issues. For example, the position “rationalism” on knowledge was strongly correlated with the views that “there is a priori knowledge” and “an analytic-synthetic distinction holds.”

In the 2009 study, Bourget and Chalmers also conducted a Metasurvey, which invited philosophers to make predictions about the proportion of various views in the philosophical community. The results showed that philosophers’ predictions of the dominant views were inaccurate on most issues, and they often underestimated the prevalence of their own views. These results also implied that many distributions in the burden of proof by resorting to default positions in past philosophical discussions might have been inappropriate.

The findings attracted a great deal of attention and discussion once published. Since then, this study has been frequently cited when discussing agreements or disagreements among philosophers on specific issues.Footnote 1 Besides philosophy, the results have also been referred to in articles in law, economics, medicine, education, and media. Also, some researchers tried to explore and analyze the relationship between philosophical views and psychological characteristics based on this questionnaire (Yaden & Anderson, 2021). Of course, this kind of survey has also raised a lot of controversies and questions about philosophical methodology (Cappelen, 2017).

In order to further examine and analyze changes in the academic views of philosophers over time, Bourget and Chalmers conducted a more extensive online survey ten years later. The target population was expanded from philosophers in 99 philosophy departments in English-speaking countries (and a few European countries) to practitioners with experience in publishing philosophy articles in English, and 1785 responses were received. The main questions (i.e. the questions that all subjects had to complete) of this questionnaire were expanded from 30 to 40, including some philosophical issues that are currently concerned in English-speaking countries, such as “philosophical methodology,” “gender,” and “race.” At the same time, the questionnaire also added 60 new questions on more professional and advanced philosophical issues.

Meanwhile, there was also some slight modification made to answer options in the 2020 survey. With options “accept” and “leaned towards” remaining, most of the options listed under “other” in the 2009 survey, such as “the question is too unclear to answer,” “there is no fact of the matter,” “insufficiently familiar with the issue,” “agnostic/undecide,” and “other,” were also preserved but presented directly instead of hidden within a sub-option menu. Moreover, to enable philosophers to express their views more extensively, the 2020 survey allowed participants to specify the views they supported or opposed if they chose “evaluate multiple options.” And participants were also allowed to write in their alternative views if they would like to. Here is an example of a question and its options (Bourget & Chalmers, 2023):

Free will: libertarianism, compatibilism, or no free will

  • Accept: libertarianism

  • Lean toward: libertarianism

  • Accept: compatibilism

  • Lean toward: compatibilism

  • Accept: no free will

  • Lean toward: no free will

  • Alternative view

  • Evaluate multiple options (e.g. accept more than one, reject all)

  • The question is too unclear to answer

  • There is no fact of the matter

  • Insufficiently familiar with the issue

  • Agnostic/undecided

  • Other

Comment

Submit answer 【Button】

Although the results of the 2020 survey were not significantly different from the results of 2009, fluctuations on some issues were found. For example, among philosophers with similar backgrounds (i.e. philosophers in the departments of philosophy which have been adopted in the 2009 survey), supporters for non-classical logic increased, while supporters for invariantism on knowledge claims decreased slightly. Among the group of participants who had participated in the 2009 survey, attitudes towards the trolley problem also moderately changed, with more philosophers preferring not to switch.

The Metasurvey for philosophers’ predictions on the distribution of philosophers’ views was removed in the 2020 survey; Chalmers and Bourget’s two predictions about philosophy seemed incorrect according to this survey. Chalmers once claimed that “truth is the primary aim at least of many parts of philosophy, such as analytic philosophy.” (Chalmers, 2015, p. 14). And in Bourget and Chalmers’ paper, they stated that “the prevalence of views among philosophers can serve as a guide to their truth.” (Bourget & Chalmers, 2014, p.466). In contrast, the 2020 survey revealed that “understanding” rather than “truth/knowledge” was taken as the goal of philosophy by most philosophers. Additionally, philosophers have not reached as much agreement on core philosophical issues as Chalmers would have anticipated ten years later.

This result again illustrated that philosophers’ evaluations of the distribution of philosophers’ views and the development of philosophy based on their own experiences and reflections are often far from accurate. Therefore, empirical studies are required if we want to have a more realistic and precise picture of the views of philosophers and to identify the similarities and differences in the development of philosophy in different countries and regions.

3 The Chinese survey on analytic philosophers in China

The two surveys by Bourget and Chalmers have also caused a considerable reaction in the Chinese analytic philosophy community. However, due to many difficulties such as language, both studies failed to cover the Chinese analytic philosophy community well. In the past half-century, analytic philosophy has greatly developed in China, though there still remains a certain gap with English-speaking countries. What are the views of philosophers in China on those core issues in analytic philosophy and what kind of differences and disputes may exist between philosophers in China and English-speaking countries on these issues? These are questions worth thoroughly exploring. Therefore, we designed a Chinese version questionnaire based on Bourget and Chalmers’ 2020 survey (Bourget & Chalmers, 2023) and conducted an online survey on analytic philosophers in China.

3.1 Target population

Since the participants of the Bourget and Chalmers’ questionnaires were mainly philosophers in the field of analytic philosophy, and the questions were primarily focused on the core areas of analytic philosophy, after communicating with Chalmers, we decided the target population of our study to be professional philosophers (including post-docs) who were engaged in research related to analytic philosophy in departments of philosophy (or other associated departments/schools, such as schools of humanities) in universities in China.

In order to recruit participants with professional backgrounds, we established an “Analytic Philosophy in China” WeChat group with a total of 500 philosophers in China. The group members were either philosophers who considered themselves engaging in research of analytic philosophy or philosophers who were recommended for having research interests closely related to analytic philosophy. The study used Tencent’s questionnaire platform and collected participants by sharing the questionnaire link in the WeChat group, with 142 effective questionnaires finally received. In terms of gender, 18.3% were female, and 77.5% were male (the remaining 4.2% preferred not to say). In terms of position, 23.2% were full professors, and 33.8% were associate professors. In terms of area of specialization, epistemology had the highest proportion, with 29.6%, followed by philosophy of language with 28.9% and philosophy of science with 24.6% (the question for areas of specialization was a multiple-choice question).

3.2 Questionnaire design

Considering that the length of the questionnaire may affect the response rate, our questionnaire only selected 38 questions from the main questionnaire section of the 2020 survey, including eight questions on ethics; five questions each on epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind; four questions on meta-philosophy; three questions on philosophy of language; and one question each on aesthetics, decision theory, logic, philosophy of action, and philosophy of science. There were still three other questions on gender, race, and the meaning of life. Thirty-two questions were about opinions or attitudes towards specific philosophical issues, and six questions investigated judgments or choices about particular thought experiments.Footnote 2

The questions and options in our questionnaire shared the same format as Bourget and Chalmers’ 2020 questionnaire. The answer screen is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Answer screen for our survey

Full size image

To streamline the survey and alleviate the complexity of completing it, we dropped the sub-menu for “evaluate multiple options” and instead labeled the option as “accept a combination of views.” This naming choice was based on the term used to describe the combined proportions within the option “evaluate multiple options” in the result report of the 2020 survey (Bourget & Chalmers, 2023). However, participants were allowed to give their own answers if they chose “other____.”

This survey was approved by the local ethics committee. Participants were told the purpose and procedures of the survey, as well as how their answers would be used with informed consent at the beginning of the survey. Although all the questions were compulsory and could not be skipped, participants were informed that they might withdraw at any time, even if they had first provided their consent.

3.3 Results and discussions

A rough description of the results of our questionnaire is shown in Table 1. The results presented here combined the results of “accept” and “lean towards” a particular position. And the options of “accept an alternative view,” “the question is too unclear to answer,” “there is no fact of the matter,” “insufficiently familiar with the issue,” “agnostic/undecided,” and “other____” were combined into “other.”Footnote 3

Table 1 Results of the survey on philosophical views of philosophers in China
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The findings revealed that analytic philosophers in China had disputations on most issues. And the relatively dominant views were only found on a few issues. There were only eight views supported by more than half of the philosophers in our study. The view with the highest level of consensus, and also the only view accepted or leaned towards by more than 70% of philosophers, was omnivorism on the issue of eating animals and animal products (76.1%). Followed in order was scientific realism (66.2%), don’t push in the footbridge (66.2%), a priori knowledge (66.2%), non-skeptical realism (64.1%), analytic-synthetic distinction (61.3%), moral realism (52.1%), and naturalism about metaphilosophy (51.4%).Footnote 4

The results also showed that philosophers in China strongly preferred the option “accept a combination of views.” In 10 out of 38 questions, “accept a combination of views” was the option chosen by most philosophers, and the proportions of this option on 12 questions exceeded 20%. Moreover, in the question “Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism,” this proportion even reached 54.2%.

In addition, we calculated the correlations between the more supported views on different philosophical issues (e.g., between the option of “yes” in the “a priori knowledge” question and the option of “nominalism” in the “abstract objects” question), and we also analyzed the possible influence of gender on philosophical attitudes.

To calculate the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients between philosophical views, we encoded the options first. Our encoding referred to that in Bourget and Chalmers’ studies: acceptance of one main view was encoded as + 2, leaning towards that view was encoded as + 1, leaning towards another main view was encoded as − 1, acceptance of another view was encoded as − 2, choosing “accept an alternative view” or “other” and filling in the specific point of view were also encoded as − 2; choosing “agnostic/undecided,” “the question is too unclear to answer,” or “there is no fact of the matter” was encoded as 0; and the rest of the options were not included in the calculation (Bourget & Chalmers, 2014, 2023). Notably, data from the “accept a combination of views” option (which replaced the “evaluate multiple options” and its submenu to streamline the survey here) were exclude from the calculation, since “accept a combination of views” may be interpreted differently by different subjects and their responses to different questions, for example, interpreted as accepting combinations of varying proportions among the main views. In short, the different options were interpreted as different levels of support for a particular view.Footnote 5 Considering that there is a perfect negative correlation between the two main views on the same binary question (Bourget & Chalmers, 2014), and most of the questions are binary questions (22 out of 38), we only focused on the correlations between the views that received more support in each question. The results of the ten pairs of philosophical views with the highest absolute correlation coefficients are shown in Table 2.Footnote 6

Table 2 Ranking of correlation coefficients between philosophical views
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A rank sum test (a nonparametric test comparing differences in independent samples) showed that gender had a significant or marginally significant effect on only a very few philosophical views. (1) In terms of attitude towards eating animals and animal products, men showed a higher level of acceptance of “omnivorism” than women (p = 0.074, with Bonferroni correction). (2) Men showed a higher acceptance of “biological” perspective on the issue of “gender” (p = 0.067, with Bonferroni correction). (3) Women showed a higher acceptance of “naturalism” on the “metaphilosophy” issue than men (p = 0.055, with Bonferroni correction). (4) Men showed a higher acceptance of “correspondence” theory of truth (p = 0.017, with Bonferroni correction).

4 Comparison between philosophers in China and English-speaking countries

Comparing our findings with those of Bourget and Chalmers’ 2020 survey, philosophers in China and English-speaking countries differed in many ways. Philosophers in China reached consensus on fewer topics and when they did reach consensus, they did so to a lesser degree compared to philosophers in English-speaking countries. In the 2020 survey, 11 views gained support from more than 50% of participants, and three were endorsed by more than 70%. In contrast, only seven views received support from over half of the participants and one from over 70% in the Chinses survey. Nevertheless, on the following six issues: science, footbridge, a priori knowledge, external world, analytic-synthetic distinction, and meta-ethics, both philosophers in China and English-speaking countries formed the same dominant opinions with more than 50% approval.

It is noteworthy that a significantly higher percentage of philosophers in China preferred combined answers than philosophers in English-speaking countries. In the 2020 survey, only one issue, the “aim of philosophy,” received more than 20% of participants (27.0%) chose the combined answer. And only four questions had received more than 10% of participants chose this option.Footnote 7 In contrast, the combined answers were the most popular option in more than one-fourth of the questions (10 out of 38) in the Chinese survey, with proportions over 20%.Footnote 8

Moreover, there were substantial differences in the familiarity of certain philosophical issues between philosophers in China and English-speaking countries. As to the question about “teletransporter,” 43.0% of Chinese participants chose “insufficiently familiar with the issue,” and to the question about “Newcomb’s problem” and “time,” 59.9% and 61.3% of Chinese participants chose this option. Although the questions about “Newcomb’s problem” and “time” were relatively unfamiliar to many philosophers in English-speaking countries still, they knew much better about these issues than philosophers in China, given that only 37.1% and 34.4% of participants in English-speaking countries taken themselves as unfamiliar with the question about “Newcomb’s problem” and “time,” and 10.4% with “teletransporter.”

In addition, this study also revealed differences in the attitudes of philosophers in China and English-speaking countries on many specific philosophical issues. Of the 38 questions, 23 showed a significantly different choice tendency between philosophers in China and English-speaking countries (at least one option differed by more than 15%) (Table 3). Excluding six questions that differed significantly only in the option of “accept a combination of views” (epistemic justification, knowledge, logic, normative ethics, race, and truth) and three questions that were not quite representative because most philosophers in China were not familiar with them (teletransporter, time, and Newcomb’s problem), there were still 14 questions that showed strong disagreement between philosophers from China and English-speaking countries on specific views.

Table 3 Issues with cultural differences over 15%
Full size table

For example, as to “proper names,” philosophers in China displayed a stronger inclination towards “Fregean” compared to philosophers in English-speaking countries. “Fregean” was the dominant choice among philosophers in China, representing 43.7% of responses, while it shared preference almost evenly with “Millian” among philosophers in English-speaking countries with only a proportion of 24.7%. Moreover, in the “trolley problem” and its variation “footbridge,” as to whether to intervene and save more by sacrificing one, more philosophers in China tended to respond negatively than the opposite in both cases, with the proportion of inaction on the “footbridge” even higher. These results contrasted sharply with the results of philosophers in English-speaking countries. In the “trolley problem,” 60.8% of philosophers from English-speaking countries chose “switch” to save more people. In the “footbridge,” although fewer philosophers in English-speaking countries chose “push” than “don’t push,” the percentage of those willing to take action was still much higher than that of philosophers in China.

When it came to questions about meaning and value, philosophers in China also made very different choices from philosophers in English-speaking countries. On the question of “meaning of life,” nearly half of the philosophers in China chose “subjective” (46.5%), while only 18.3% chose “objective.” However, among philosophers in English-speaking countries, only 27.4% of them thought that the meaning of life is “subjective.” Although the proportion of those who thought the meaning of life is “objective” is not very high (26.7%), it is nevertheless slightly higher than that of the philosophers in China. As to the question of “aesthetic value,” although the proportions of “subjective” were similar among the philosophers in China (33.8%) and the philosophers in English-speaking countries (35.4%), only 18.3% of the philosophers in China chose “objective” while 38.3% of the philosophers in English-speaking countries chose “objective.” Regarding the question of the “experience machine” which concerns whether happiness is the only intrinsic value, nearly half of the philosophers in China were willing to enter (47.2%). On the contrary, “no” were the overwhelming choice among philosophers in English-speaking countries, with a proportion of 70.7%.

In addition, philosophers in China also had very different views on “philosophical methods,” compared with philosophers in English-speaking countries. Although a considerable number of philosophers both in China (71.1%) and in English-speaking countries (68.9%) regarded “conceptual analysis” as a useful or important method in philosophy, the philosophers in English-speaking countries were generally more open to other philosophical methods, such as experimental philosophy, empirical philosophy, and formal philosophy, than the philosophers in China.

Our survey results also revealed the differences between philosophers in China and English-speaking countries on some issues closer to daily life. For example, on the question of “eating animals and animal products,” 76.1% of the philosophers in China chose “omnivorism,” indicating that the consumption of both animals and animal products was widely approved in their everyday life. In contrast, only 46.5% of the philosophers in English-speaking countries chose “omnivorism” in response to this question. On the question of “gender,” the most popular option among the philosophers in China was “biological” (34.5%) while the most popular option among the philosophers in English-speaking countries was “social” (39.8%). As for the understanding of “race,” although there was a more noticeable difference between philosophers in China and English-speaking countries in the percentage of “a combination of views,” the proportion of choosing “biological” among the philosophers from China (16.2%) was slightly higher than that of the philosophers in English-speaking countries (10.6%).

Finally, the results of our correlation analysis showed there was some consistency between philosophers in China and English-speaking countries, in terms of which pairs of views have the highest correlation coefficients. For example, in Bourget and Chalmer’s 2009 survey, the highest correlation was observed between “moral realism” in meta-ethics and “cognitivism” in moral judgment (r = 0.562) and between “naturalism” in metaphilosophy and “physicalism” in mind (r = 0.497); in their 2020 survey, “naturalism” in metaphilosophy and “physicalism” in mind (r = 0.62) as well as “moral realism” in meta-ethics and “cognitivism” in moral judgment (r = 0.6) also showed the highest correlation when only considering the correlation between views on the main questions; and importantly, these two pairs of views also ranked third and fourth, respectively, among the pairs of views with the highest correlation coefficients in our survey (see Table 2). However, there were also some differences, such as the strong correlation between “yes” in analytic–synthetic distinction and “yes” in a priori knowledge in their results (in 2009 survey, r = 0.467; in 2020 survey, r = 0.6), which was not observed in our results (r = 0.172, p = 0.057).

5 Possible factors causing the differences in responses between philosophers in China and English-speaking countries

Many cross-cultural studies have illustrated that sociocultural factors may significantly influence the participants’ response style and specific opinions. The differences found in the responses to academic questions between philosophers in China and English-speaking countries may also be partially explained by sociocultural factors of various kinds. For example, the preference of philosophers in China for combined views may have its roots in the culture’s overall propensity to avoid extreme views and appreciate compromise or dialectical points. Previous cross-cultural experiments using rating scales found that participants from East Asia were less inclined to choose extreme values than participants from North America (Chen et al., 1995). Meanwhile, cross-cultural studies have also revealed that Chinese participants favored dialectical proverbs with seeming contradictions more, such as “too humble is half proud,” than American participants. And they were more willing to accept intermediate positions when given conflicting opinions (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2010). Due to this cultural tradition, philosophers in China might be accustomed to taking a more moderate and conciliatory perspective on controversial philosophical issues.

Some differences in certain philosophical issues between philosophers in China and English-speaking countries revealed in this study also echo differences found in previous cross-culture studies involving ordinary people. Specifically, the preference for “Fregean” among philosophers in China seems to align with the findings from experiments within the “cross-cultural semantics” debate, which suggested that Eastern participants’ tend to favor a descriptivist interpretation of proper names (Machery et al., 2004). One possible explanation for this difference may be rooted in linguistic distinctions. In Chinese, proper names frequently contain descriptions pertaining to the referred object. For example, consider the proper name “北京 (Beijing),” which refer to the capital city of China located in the northern region of the country. The character “北 (Bei)” means northern, while “京 (Jing)” means capital. Instead of disguised descriptions, the proper names in Chinese are more like abbreviated descriptions. Given this linguistic characteristic inherent to Chinese proper names, it could be natural for both ordinary people and philosophers in China tended a favor to descriptivist interpretation of proper names.

Additionally, the differences between philosophers in China and English-speaking countries on the “trolley problem” case and the “footbridge” case are congruent with the results of many earlier relevant cross-cultural studies. When considering the trolley problem case or its variations, participants raised in East Asia, especially in China, were usually less willing to sacrifice the minority to save the majority than participants raised in Western cultures (e.g., Europe and North America) (Ahlenius & Tännsjö, 2012; Awad et al., 2020; Gold et al., 2014). One of the explanations suggests that this divergence comes from the difference between collectivist and individualist cultures (Rehman & Dzionek-Kozłowska, 2020; Winskel & Bhatt, 2020). Collectivism values social reputations more than individualism, prompting people to avoid actions that might elicit negative social evaluations or put their reputations at risk. Previous studies have indicated a general tendency among people to avoid actions causing violent harm (Cushman et al., 2012) and suggested that actions tend to invite more evaluations than inaction (DeScioli et al., 2011). Therefore, those who choose to switch or push may encounter a higher risk of receiving unfavorable social evaluations, while the choice of “don’t switch” or “don’t push” emerges as a safer choice in terms of maintaining personal reputations within collectivist cultures. Moreover, interdependent and collectivistic groups tend to exhibit higher levels of empathic concern (Luo et al., 2015), which has been suggested to have a negative association with “calculated” utilitarian responses in moral dilemmas (Arutyunova et al., 2016; Gleichgerrcht & Young, 2013). Meanwhile, social emotions such as guilt and anxiety, which are typically more prevalent and intense in collectivistic cultures (Heinrichs et al., 2006; Scollon et al., 2004), might also deter people from deliberately causing harm in such dilemmas (Bago et al., 2022; Perkins et al., 2013).Footnote 9

Another explanation for this difference is the greater prevalence of fatalism in Chinese culture (Ahlenius & Tännsjö, 2012; Gold et al., 2014; Winskel & Bhatt, 2020). People who accept fatalism tend to believe it is better to comply with nature, so they try not to interfere with the original process of events. No matter switching or pushing fundamentally is an intervention in the development of events, and therefore not encouraged. This fatalistic attitude is tied to the thoughts in Taoism, like “nature” and “Wuwei (letting things take their own course),” and suggests a deeper possible cultural factor—the traditional Chinese philosophy.Footnote 10

The philosophical tradition in Western cultures always had an extraordinary enthusiasm for pursuing truth. But in the book A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, Feng Youlan, a Chinese philosopher, emphasizes that traditional Chinese philosophy aims to improve the spiritual realm, instead of advancing knowledge about the objective world. In other words, “Philosophy is not simply something to be known, but is also something to be experienced.” (Feng & Bodde, 1948, p.10) Such an understanding of philosophy and doing philosophy would lead philosophers in China to pay more attention to experience and thus tend to view meaning and value as “subjective” rather than “objective.” Meanwhile, it may also make philosophers in China value personal experiences more in the “experience machine” case than philosophers in English-speaking countries.

In addition to sociocultural factors and philosophical traditions, the current focus of philosophy in China might also have an impact on the distribution of philosophical views. For example, on the question of “knowledge: empiricism or rationalism,” the reason that more than half of philosophers (54.2%) in our study chose “accept a combination of views” is probably due to a widespread narrative of the history of Western philosophy, in which the conflict between empiricism and rationalism has already been ended by Kant with his synthetic a priori judgment. Therefore, after Kant, a relatively reasonable position appears to be the combined view. But if one pays more attention to the discussions and criticisms of logical positivism as well as the achievements obtained in cognitive sciences on children’s development, she or he would probably have a different understanding and opinion on the empiricism-rationalism debate.

Similar reasons apply to the broadest consensus among philosophers in China on the issue of “eating animals and animal products.” Since Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation was published in the 1970s, vegetarianism has become a serious and significant animal ethics issue in Western academia. Nonetheless, there is not much discussion about vegetarianism based on animal ethics in China, and whether or not one can eat meat is rarely taken seriously as an academic issue. Some studies also pointed out that the vast majority of philosophers in China regarded eating meat as a morally neutral matter (Hou et al., 2022). Therefore, when answering this question, philosophers in China were more likely to refer to their own daily habits without giving much thought to ethics.

The attitude towards “aesthetic value” among philosophers in China can also be explained by this diversity in philosophical interests. One of the core issues in Western analytic aesthetics is how to deal with the tension between the subjectivity and objectivity of aesthetic evaluation, that is, how aesthetic evaluation can vary from person to person while possessing certain criteria. This presupposes that there is at least an objective dimension in aesthetic value. However, there is not much discussion of this tension in aesthetics among analytic philosophers in China; the objective dimension of aesthetic value was therefore less assumed. The views of philosophers in China on aesthetic value are closer to those of people who have not systematically received philosophical training (Cova et al., 2019). The difference in attitude towards aesthetic value may also be rooted in the differences between Chinese classical aesthetics and Western analytic aesthetics. For example, “Chinese classical aesthetics does not place as much emphasis on the category of ‘beauty’ as Western aesthetics does, but especially on the categories of ‘Tao (道)’, ‘Qi (气)’, and ‘Miao (妙)’.” (Ye, 1985, p.13) Thus, philosophers in China and English-speaking countries may refer to different categories when considering aesthetic values.

Moreover, the divergent perspectives on “philosophical methods” between philosophers in China and English-speaking countries may also result from the differences in their study priorities and developmental phases. On the one hand, this suggests that philosophers in China may not have had enough reflections on philosophical methodology. On the other hand, it indicates that the philosophical methods already adopted by philosophers in China in their research may be somewhat constrained.

However, the above discussion and analysis, resorting to different sociocultural factors, are simply speculative explanations for some of the differences found between philosophers in China and English-speaking countries. More detailed and in-depth research and exploration are needed to understand the reasons behind these differences and bring insights into the advancement of related issues.

6 Conclusion

Does it make sense to conduct a survey on the academic views of philosophers? The results of our study on philosophers in China provide a positive answer to this question. First, our results revealed consensuses as well as disagreements among philosophers in China on many academic issues that have received attention in analytic philosophy. Some of the results were in accordance with expectations, while many were not. This indicates that the assumptions about the default position and distribution of the burden of proof in many previous discussions might not be very reasonable. To determine which philosophical perspectives are endorsed by the majority of philosophers, empirical investigations are required. And findings of our study provide empirical evidence for determining the dominant views and clarifying the burden of proof.

Based on shared philosophical goals and interests, and especially on shared professional training backgrounds and research paradigms, analytic philosophers have become a group with a strong sense of mutual identification and frequent communication, which can be described as “cherishing the same ideals and following the same path.” However, despite the robust consensus within the analytic community regarding the importance of argumentation, rationality, etc., persistent disagreements on numerous specific philosophical issues have consistently emerged in empirical investigations, including this current one. Furthermore, our study also shows many differences between philosophers in China and English-speaking countries on a wide range of important academic questions. With an emphasis on logic and argumentation, analytical philosophy has long been confident in its rationality, objectivity, and neutrality of methodology as well as in its immunity to the sociocultural environment and other interfering factors. Our results, however, indicate that areas of interest, styles of thinking, and views of specific issues may all inevitably be affected by the sociocultural backgrounds of philosophers. Therefore, no matter to those who want to insist on the objectivity, neutrality, and universality of analytic philosophy and deny the possibility of local or cultural-specific analytic philosophy or those who intend to advocate for the development of an analytic philosophy path that is more in line with the reality of particular regions, considering its value traditions and thoughts origins, it is necessary to pay more attention to the potential influence of sociocultural factors in the research of analytic philosophy.

Of course, as a preliminary attempt to investigate the academic views of philosophers in China, this study has some limitations and shortcomings. In terms of the design of the questionnaire, the questions used in the study were derived from the previous two studies conducted by Bourget and Chalmers for philosophers in English-speaking countries, therefore mainly focused on core issues concerned with the English-speaking analytic philosophy community. As a result, some of the questions included in the Chinese questionnaire are not of interest to philosophers in China, and some issues that would be more central to philosophers in China, such as “the relationship between heaven and man,” were completely absent. Meanwhile in terms of participants, considering the topics of the questions and the comparability with Bourget and Chalmers’s data, only philosophers whose main research field is analytic philosophy were invited to the survey. However, analytic philosophy is not the dominant approach in China as it is in English-speaking countries. If we want to have a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of the academic views of philosophers in China, rather than merely analytic philosophers in China, a wider group of philosophers in various philosophical fields should be included. These are the aspects that need to be improved and refined in our further research.