PHIL 203 Metaphysics
Fall Semester 2011 | DAY
INSTRUCTOR: P. Hanson, WMX 5658
REQUIRED TEXT
- What Is This Thing Called Metaphysics? 2nd Edition; Brian Garrett, Routledge (2011). Background readings related to material in the text will also be made available.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
On one conception, metaphysics is concerned with giving an adequate, illuminating, unified account of the most general ontological categories with which we characterize reality. Ontological categories that inform at least our pre-theoretic ways of looking at the world include: object, property, relation, event, process, fact, person, and maybe even reality tout court. Certain kinds of properties and relations also have central metaphysical importance, including: spatio-temporal, causal, and compositional relations; relations between language and reality; and modal properties and relations. This course is intended as an introductory survey of metaphysics so conceived, in which we shall also pay particular attention to issues concerning the identity, individuation, and continuity through change of physical objects in time on the one hand; and issues concerning the identity, individuation, and continuity through multiple instantiations of properties in space on the other.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
- 4 short papers – worth 25% each
Note: Prerequisites: one of Phil 100, 150, 151.