Phil 361

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Department of Philosophy: 2013

 

Phil 361: Metaphysical Structures of the World

 

Course Outline for 2013, Semester 2: Web Information Sheet #1

 

 

Times:    LecturesSemester 2: Thursdays 3-5 PM.

              Tutorials: You are required to enrol in one tutorial per week (beginning week 2). See information when you enrol at Student Services Online).

 

Lecturers: Robert Nola (Course Convenor):  r.nola@auckland.ac.nz

Denis Robinson: dj.robinson@auckland.ac.nz

 

Text and use of CECIL:

 

Recommended Textbook: Brian Garrett, What is this thing called metaphysics? The Library has 1 copy on general loan, plus 2 more copies on 2-hour Short Loan at the Kate Edger Information Commons. (There are two editions of this book; the first edition can serve as well but it has fewer chapter topics in it.) Youcan also access an electronic copy of this book through the Library as ane-resource.We could have made the textbook Required but we chose to make it only Recommended since it may be read online. You will be required to read relevant chapters of this text either as an e-book or from your own personal copy.

 

Additional reading will also be posted on Cecil. When a PowerPoint is used in class it will be made available on CECIL.

 

Lecture Topics List (Provisional only, but indicative. Final list of topics will be given at the first lecture)

 

Lecture: 2 hours on Thursdays, 3-5 pm	Topic	Lecturer
1:  25 July	(a)   Introduction to the Course (b)  Fatalism	Robert Nola
2: 1 Aug	Fatalism, Free Will & Neuroscience	Robert Nola
3: 8 Aug	Free Will & Neuroscience	Robert Nola
4: 15 Aug	Universals	Robert Nola
5: 22 Aug	Universals	Robert Nola
[[6:  28 Aug ??]] This topic might be discussed earlier	[[Zeno’s paradoxes]]	[[Robert Nola]]
MID-SEMESTER BREAK 2-14 SEPTEMBER
7: 19 Sept	Beginning on Existence – the Ontological Argument	Denis Robinson
8: 26 Sept	Existence – Two Views	Denis Robinson
9:  3 Oct	Existence and Modal Notions	Denis Robinson
10: 10 Oct	Non-existence, Meinong, Russell	Denis Robinson
11: 17 Oct	Time: A-theory, B-theory, and McTaggart	Denis Robinson
12:  24 Oct	Further puzzles about time	Denis Robinson
STUDY BREAK & EXAMINATIONS FROM 26 OCTOBER

 

Nearly all the topics are chapters in the recommended text. You can discover more about them by reading the text. The Library also has extensive holdings of books on Metaphysics which cover these, and other, topics in metaphysics.

 

Coursework:

There are two coursework requirements.

(1)   Students will be required to complete one essay (worth a maximum of 20%).

(2)   In each tutorial, students will be required to do a writing assignment of about 15-20 minutes duration based on assigned readings. There will be 11 tutorials and a minimum of 8 writing exercises will be required to be completed over the 11 tutorial sessions. Completing all of the 8 assignments is worth a maximum of 20%. The remainder of the tutorial time will be devoted to discussion based on prescribed reading.

The maximum total coursework mark is therefore 40%.

More details about coursework will be announced in class, such as the nature of the essay and the topic, the writing assignment topics and the readings, what happens of you do not complete the coursework, etc. 

Examination:

This will be of three hours duration with students being required to answer at least three questions, at least one question from each of the two sections A (first half of the course) and B (second half) of the course as listed above. 

Final Grade:

The final grade is the sum of the following: coursework – up to 40% and final examination mark – up to 60%. There is no plussage or maximizing at third year.

 

Expected Learning Outcomes.

 

Students taking this course should expect to acquire knowledge of a significant number of the issues and debates found in the lecture topic list above. Some of the problems addressed in these topics have been explored throughout the history of philosophy and are still at the centre of important contemporary debates about them. Important are the reasons and arguments which have been developed concerning these matters.  Students should obtain a reasonably detailed knowledge of (i) what is the philosophical nature of the topic under discussion and (ii) some of the central patterns of argument which have arisen in attempting to clarify these issues and resolve the debates around these topics. Some of the issues have resisted easy solutions; so students should become aware of the argumentative dialectic that has gone on.

Expected Learning Outcomes Generic to Studying Philosophy at this Level

Students taking this course should aim to develop a level of philosophical understanding, skills and abilities, beyond those required for a Stage 1 introductory Philosophy course.

These generic philosophical skills and abilities required in this course include:

• grasping the structure of philosophical arguments;
• understanding the ideas of a priori argumentation and of deductive validity;
• having a basic understanding of the dialectical processes of challenge, counter-example, reply and theory-modification;
• coming to understand that basic and well-known philosophical issues have a natural dialectical geography which has a history of prolonged and cumulative, but continuing, exploration;
• having some experience and ability in exploring such territory by oneself;
• seeing how empirical information may constrain philosophical viewpoints even when it does not resolve philosophical disputes;
• being able to engage in close analytic reading of distinctively philosophical texts;
• being able to express oneself philosophically, both in speech and in writing, in clear, concise and precise language;
• being able to engage in reasoning and debate about abstract topics.;
• being able to construct for oneself the complexities of the arguments involved in the various topics.

 

With subjects like history, sociology and the physical, chemical and biological sciences, evidence one can find plays a big role in deciding what theory one should adopt. These subjects have an empirical basis which plays a big role in assessing what to believe. In contrast metaphysics has no such empirical basis; there are no real of facts of the matter which are decisive in deciding metaphysics issues. Of course any metaphysics that does not accord with the facts would be deficient. But the facts are not capable of deciding metaphysical issues such as whether we have free will or not, whether or not there are universals, and so on. Metaphysics is largely an a priori discipline which employs reason alone as the means of debate and for deciding between rival metaphysical issues.  Also metaphysics often investigates the presuppositions of science (such as the nature of laws, causation, explanation, time, etc). So it is not open to the empirical methods of science for investigation. What this suggests is that reason, and reason alone, is the only instrument to use to address metaphysical issues. So students ought to be sure that they are well-equipped intellectually to employ their reasoning abilities. However the course does not presuppose any other course on reasoning or logic; these matters will be dealt with during the course in an informal manner.