1.Basic definition of metaphysics and examples of issues in the field
“After physics”the first principle of things, examples are being, knowing, cause, identity, time and space
2.Why metaphysics is considered “more fundamental” than physics and other academic disciplines
You don’t need an understanding of in depth science and physics, our natural understanding of the
world and critical thinking
3.Quine’s notion of ontological commitment
ontology seeks the classification and explanation of entities
4.Aristotle’s four causes and his concept of hylomorphism
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Material cause: "that out of which" it is made.
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Efficient Cause: the source of the objects principle of change or stability.
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Formal Cause: the essence of the object.
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Final Cause: the end/goal of the object, or what the object is good for.
hylomorphism, (from Greek hylē, “matter”; morphē, “form”), in philosophy, metaphysical view
according to which every natural body consists of two intrinsic principles, one potential, namely,
primary matter, and one actual, namely, substantial form. It was the central doctrine of
Aristotle's philosophy of nature.
5.How the theory of the four causes informs Aristotle’s criticism of Presocratic theories of the cosmos,
particularly Democritus’ atomism
The atomists held that there are smallest indivisible bodies from which everything else is composed,
and that these move about in an infinite void.
6.The notion of substratum and Locke and Berkeley’s critique of it
Locke thinks that in our experience of the world, the raw. materials of what we experience are
properties: we become. aware of being in the presence of an orange by becoming. aware of orangeness,
sphericalness, and so on
Berkeley's first argument is that since (a) one cannot abstract a primary quality (e.g., shape) from a
secondary quality (e.g., color), and (b) secondary qualities are only ideas in the mind, so are primary
qualities. Locke would reject (b), since for him secondary qualities are “powers” in objects.
7.Four distinctions between types of properties: universal vs. particular, essential vs. accidental,
categorical vs. dispositional, intrinsic vs. relational
a categorical property is a property that has no identity other than that of formal self-identit
Disposition is a term used in metaphysics usually to indicate a type of property, state or condition.
Such a property is one that provides for the possibility of some further specific state or behaviour,
usually in circumstances of some specific kind.
An intrinsic property is a property that an object or a thing has of itself, including its context, example
mass, weight is extrinsic or relational
8.The difference between universals ante re (aka Plato’s Theory of Forms) and universals in re
9.The connection between universals in re and what Armstrong calls The Principle of Instantiation
that there can be no uninstantiated or unexemplified properties (or universals).
10.The differences between physical objects and Platonic Forms
Platonism is the view that there exist such things as abstract objects — where an abstract object is an
object that does not exist in space or time and which is therefore entirely non-physical and non-mental.
Platonism in this sense is a contemporary view.
11.Two objections to universals in re: (1) the multiple location of a single universal, and (2) the theory
entails that the experience of duplicated properties should be common, but that is not the case.
12.Two objections to universals ante re: (1) it is incompatible with Naturalism, and (2) the Third Man
infinite regress.
Aristotle's argument against forms is known as the third man argument. It postulates that for
something to be a perfect form of a man, it would have to have all the attributes of a man. For
something to exist as true form of a human, it would have to have the exact physical body of that
human.
13.Resemblance Nominalism, and two objections to it: (1) mere resemblance between things cannot be
a basis for establishing categories, and (2) resemblance itself is a universal.
If resemblance nominalism is anything, it is the idea that having a property is resembling certain things.
The idea must be implemented by specifying what things something must resemble in order to have a
property. But the specification cannot be given in terms of what properties these things must have
14.Definitions of reflexive, symmetric and transitive relations
Reflexive relation is a relation of elements of a set A such that each element of the set is related to
itself. As the name ' reflexive relations' suggests, the image of every element of the set is its own
reflection. reflexive relation is an important concept in set theory.
15.Definition of a modal claim and a modal property
16.Objective vs. epistemic possibility
17.Counterfactual possibility vs. future possibility
18.The notions of logical possibility/necessity and nomological possibility/necessity