Course Description

01 (B. Loewer) The goal of metaphysics is to provide an account of the structure of reality: what kinds of entities exist and what are their most fundamental and general features and relations. Unlike the natural and social sciences that seek to describe some special class of entities and what they are like – the physical things or the living things, particular civilizations or cultures – metaphysicians ask the most general questions about how things are, what our universe is like. In this course we will focus on the metaphysics that is at the foundation of the sciences. This includes issues about the natures of space and time, the fundamental and complex entities that occupy space and time, and the laws that describe them and are the backbone of causation and explanation.

Readings:
Text: Metaphysics: an Introduction by Alyssa Ney and papers and excerpts by philosophers that will be available on the course site.

Course work: In addition to doing the readings students will prepare two questions about the reading prior to each meeting and write a short (5-8 page) mid-term paper and a longer (10-20 page) final paper.