Metaphysics

Syllabus

• See here

Notes

• Sample arguments, good and bad, for first class
• Parfit and Swinburne
• Hume
• Strawson and Mele
• Kane and others
• Lewis’s identity theory argument

Readings

Click on name of author if the name is underlined. The links should now work from home, too. The readings may be changed, so please check back to this page a week before each class.

Identity

• For Jan. 16: Smart
• For Jan. 21: Shoemaker
• For Jan. 23: Williams
• For Jan. 28: Olson
• For Jan. 30: Parfit; Swinburne, Part II, Chapter 8 (keep on clicking on "Next" until the chapter is finished)

Free will

• For Feb. 4: Hume, Enquiry, Sections VII-VIII
• For Feb. 6: Frankfurt; Widerker
• For Feb. 11: Strawson; Mele (I recommend writing on Strawson rather than Mele)
• For Feb. 13: Kane; Pruss post 1 and post 2

Mind and persons

· For Feb. 18: Descartes, Meditations, I-II; Churchland (click on “Click to access the electronic book”), Chapter II

· For Feb. 20: Searle

· For Feb. 25: Lewis (chapter 7: “An Argument for the Identity Theory”)

· For Feb. 27: Jackson; more Jackson

Ordinary objects and persons

· For Mar. 3: Unger (emailed); SEP on vagueness

· For Mar. 5: Bailey; Merricks

Universals

· Online #1: Originally for Mar. 17: Plato, Phaedo 73b-76c (you get read it online in the NLX Library); Russell, Problems of Philosophy, Chapter 9 and Chapter 10

· Online #2: Originally for Mar. 19: SEP on nominalism; we’ll also talk about tropes

· Online #3: Originally for Mar. 24: Goodman and Quine [see Section 3 of this article for an explanation of the dot notation]; Wetzel

Substances and bundles

• Online #4: Originally for Mar. 26: van Cleve; Casullo
• Online #5: Originally for Mar. 31: Russell; Bailey; reread the material on the chunk of wax from Descartes' Meditations II

Modality

• Online #6: Originally for Apr. 2: Pruss (emailed)
• Online #7: Originally for Apr. 7: Pruss

Time

• Online #8: Originally for Apr. 9: McTaggart
• Online #9: Originally for Apr. 14: Williams
• Online #10: Originally for Apr. 16: Smith; Beer
• Online #11: Originally for Apr. 23: Einstein, Chapters 8 and 9

Causation

• Online #12: Originally for Apr. 28: Lewis, chapter 21 on causation (optional: very hard to follow)
• Online #13: Originally for Apr. 30: Pruss, up to the end of section 2.2.5 plus 2.2.7