PHIL 1660 Fall 2014 Metaphysics: Objects, People, and Possible Worlds Syllabus Professor: Nina Emery Email: nina_emery@brown.edu Office: 214 Corliss-Brackett Office Hours: Wednesdays 3:00 to 5:00pm Class meetings: Tuesday, Thursday 2:30 to 3:50pm Room: Smith-Buonanno 207 Course Description Metaphysics is the study of what the world is like. Metaphysicians are interested in questions about the nature of objects, persons, time, space, and causation and many other features of the world that we take for granted in our everyday lives. The rigorous study of these features has often led metaphysicians to make surprising claims. Plato thought that alongside the observable, concrete world there was a realm of eternal, unchanging abstract entities like Goodness, Beauty, and Justice. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz claimed that the world was composed of tiny indivisible souls, called monads. Even today contemporary metaphysicians have been known to doubt the existence of ordinary objects, deny the possibility of free will, and argue that our world is just one of a plurality of worlds. The course will be focused on these sorts of radical metaphysical claims. In each of the three main sections on objects, on persons, and on possible worlds we will identify a series of assumptions that we take for granted about everyday aspects of our world, and examine the various ways in which those assumptions have been questioned by metaphysicians. Along the way we will encounter questions about the nature of properties, causation, explanation, and laws of nature, as well as metametaphysical questions like: What makes one metaphysical theory better than another? What makes metaphysical inquiry different from scientific inquiry? Can philosophical reasoning ever overturn common sense? And under what sorts of conditions do we consider a metaphysical dispute settled?
Expectations Prerequisites All students should have taken one previous college-level philosophy course. If you do not meet that requirement you are welcome to sit in on the first few meetings of class and get a sense of the material and the level of difficulty. If you still want to take the course at that point, set up a time to come talk to me about waiving the requirement. Website All assignments, and announcements will be posted on the course Canvas site. It is your responsibility to check the site regularly. Readings There are no required textbooks for this course. All readings will be posted on the course Canvas site. You are expected to print the readings out and bring them to class. Note that relative to other humanities courses this course will not require an enormous amount of reading, but the reading that is required is difficult and will take time. Attendance You are expected to attend all class meetings. This is in your best interest as the material discussed in class will often go beyond the readings and questions about that material will often appear on assignments. In-class activities There will be regular in-class activities. These will include short writing prompts, quizzes, games, and small group projects. These will not be very difficult and will be graded leniently anyone who has made a good-faith effort to engage with the material will get full credit. In-class activities count for 20% of your grade. Short assignments There will be 4 short assignments due at regular intervals during the course. They will be a mix of short answer questions and longer essay topics. None will require more than 5 pages of writing. These assignments will be graded out of 10 points. Late assignments will be penalized 3 points for every day they are late, unless the student has received an extension in advance. With rare exceptions, I will only grant extensions for illnesses, family emergencies, or religious observances. The short assignments will count for 40% of your final grade. 2
Final Paper At the end of the term, students will write an 8-10 page paper on one of the topics discussed during the course. Topics will be posted in mid-november and the final paper will be due on December 15, 2014. No late papers will be accepted unless an extension has been granted in advance. I will only grant extensions for illnesses, family emergencies, or religious observances. The final paper counts for 40% of your final grade. Collaboration and Academic Honesty I highly encourage you to collaborate with your fellow students on any and all assignments for the course, however the work that you submit must be your own. That means you should feel free to get together to discuss the assigned questions with other students, but you should write up your answers on your own, and in your own words. If you do not understand what this means, ask! When you draw on someone else s ideas, you need to give that person proper credit. That means that any time you paraphrase someone else s writing you must make it clear that you are doing so, and anything quoted verbatim must be accompanied by a parenthetical citation or a footnote that identifies its source. I do not care what citation format you follow, but you must always include the author s name, the title of the work, and the relevant page number(s). Anything short of that is plagiarism. I take this very seriously, as does the administration. The Brown University policy on plagiarism can be found in the Academic Code (http://www.brown.edu/ Administration/Dean_of_the_College/curriculum/academic_code.php). Extra Assistance Brown University is committed to full inclusion of all students, as am I. Students who, by nature of a documented disability, require academic accommodations should contact me or speak with Student and Employee Accessibility Services at 401-863-9588 to discuss the process for requesting accommodations. Anyone needing extra help with writing is urged to take advantage of the Brown University Writing Center: http://www.brown.edu/student_services/writing_center/. 3
Tentative schedule Contact Professor Emery (nina_emery@brown.edu) for a detailed list of class topics and readings. Section I: Objects 1 Thursday, September 4 Do ordinary objects exist? 2 Tuesday, September 9 An introduction to ontology 3 Thursday, September 11 The sorities argument for nihilism 4 Tuesday, September 16 A puzzle about coinciding objects 5 Thursday, September 18 Four-dimensionalism to the rescue? 6 Tuesday, September 23 The special composition question 7 Thursday, September 25 Composition as a brute metaphysical fact? 8 Tuesday, September 30 Monism Section II: People 9 Thursday, October 2 What makes a person the same person over time? 10 Tuesday, October 7 Physical and psychological continuity criteria 11 Thursday, October 9 Duplication and survival 12 Tuesday, October 14 Freedom and determinism 13 Thursday, October 16 Are we free to break the laws? 14 Tuesday, October 21 Agent causation 15 Thursday, October 23 Causation: a whole other can of worms 16 Tuesday, October 28 The counterfactual account of causation 17 Thursday, October 30 Other accounts of causation 4
Section III: Possible Worlds 18 Tuesday, November 4 A plurality of worlds 19 Thursday, November 6 Modal realism 20 Tuesday, November 11 Ersatz possible worlds 21 Thursday, November 13 Can we do without possible worlds? 22 Tuesday, November 18 De re modality I: counterpart theory 23 Thursday, November 20 De re modality II: Essentialism 24 Tuesday, November 25 Are there impossible worlds? No class November 27 (Thanksgiving) 25 Tuesday, December 2 Why does the world exist? 26 Thursday, December 4 Metametaphysics Reading period optional classes December 9, 11 5