Metaphysics

Philosophy 122/222 Casey O’Callaghan

Spring 2003 A-112 Cowell Annex

T, Th 6-7:45pm cjo@ucsc.edu

Cowell Com 134 831.459.2191

TA: Zachary Fruhling office hour: W 3-4

course webpage: http://people.ucsc.edu/~cjo/teaching/metaphysics/metaphysics.html

Course Requirements

*Five papers, 3-4 pages each: One paper on each general topic to be covered in the class. Due at start of class on:

Th 4/17, Th 5/1, Th 5/15, Th 5/29, Th 6/5

*You are encouraged to discuss assignments with others, but you must cite all sources (published, unpublished, and verbal) that you use. Please familiarize yourself with the UCSC policy on academic integrity:

http://www.ucsc.edu/academics/academic_integrity/

Reading Assignments

Each assignment should be completed by the date listed.

All readings available on UCSC Electronic Reserves:

http://eres.ucsc.edu/coursepage.asp?cid=827&page=01

Supplementary readings are marked with ‘*’.

Preliminary Schedule

T 1 April Preliminaries

Th 3 Introduction

Existence

T 8 Russell, On Existence and Descriptions

Th 10 Quine, “On What There Is”

T 15 Lewis, “Noneism or Allism?”

Th 17 Williams, “Dispensing with Existence”

*Carnap, “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology”

*Lewis, “Anselm and Actuality”

*Parsons, “Referring to Nonexistent Objects”

Properties

T 22 Plato, Parmenides selection (130-135);

Armstrong, Universals: An Opinionated

Introduction:

Ch.1 “Introduction”

Th 24 Ch.5 “Universals as Particulars”

T 29 Williams, “The Elements of Being”

Th 1 May Aune, “Universals and Predication”

*Lewis, “New Work for a Theory of Universals”

*Taylor, “Natural Properties in Metaphysics”

*Williams, “Universals and Existents”

Time

T 6 Geach, “Some Problems About Time”

Th 8 Smart, “Time and Becoming”

T 13 Williams, “The Nature of Time”

Th 15 Lewis, “The Paradoxes of Time Travel”

*McTaggart, “The Unreality of Time”

*Broad, Examination of McTaggart’s Philosophy

*Williams, “The Myth of Passage”

*Putnam, “It Ain’t Necessarily So”

*Smart, “Is Time Travel Possible?”

Change, Persistence, & Personal Identity

T 20 Armstrong, “Identity Through Time”

Th 22 Parfit, “Personal Identity”

T 27 Lewis, “Survival and Identity” & postscripts

Th 29 Quinton, “The Soul”

*Perry, “Can the Self Divide”

*Armstrong, “Do Things Have Temporal Parts?”

*Thomson, “Parthood and Identity Across Time”

Constitution

T 3 June Van Inwagen, “The Doctrine of Arbitrary

Undetached Parts”

Th 5 Wiggins, “On Being at the Same Place at the

Same Time”

*Thomson, “The Statue and the Clay”

*Johnston, “Constitution is Not Identity”

*Rosen and Dorr, “Composition as a Fiction”

*Johnston, “Manifest Kinds”

*Soames, Beyond Rigidity, Chapters 10 and 11.