DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
TRENT UNIVERSITY
PHIL 3200Y: Metaphysics & Epistemology
2011-12 (FW)
Peterborough
Instructor: Michael Neumann
Office Location: TC WH 104
Email: mneumann@trentu.ca
Office Hours: Wednesday 8:3010:20am
Telephone: 7093
Secretary: Kathy Fife
Email: kfife@trentu.ca
Office Location: LEC S 118.3
Telephone: (705) 748-1011 x 7166
Course Description:
A study of problems such as the nature of space and time, the legitimation of belief, causation,
necessity, universals, theories of truth, personal identity, limits of objectivity, criteria of rationality and
irrationality, possible worlds.
Course Pre-requisites: 7.0 university credits or permission of department chair. Excludes PHIL 320.
Course Format:
PTBO: Please check http://www.trentu.ca/admin/mytrent/Timetable/TimeTableGen0.htm to
confirm times and locations.
Type
Lecture/Seminar
Tuesday
11:00-12:50am
Location: TBA
Course Evaluation:
Type of Assignment
Essay 1
Midterm test
Weighting
25
25
Essay 2
Final test
25
25
Due Date
November 29
To be scheduled during the Dec 9- 21 exam
period
March 27
To be scheduled during the Apr 9-24 exam
period
Optional seminar component.
In each term, you may substitute an in-class seminar
presentation for half of your term essay grade. Topic and scheduling to be arranged between
instructor and student.
University Policies
Academic Integrity:
Academic dishonesty, which includes plagiarism and cheating, is an extremely serious academic
offence and carries penalties varying from a 0 grade on an assignment to expulsion from the
University. Definitions, penalties, and procedures for dealing with plagiarism and cheating are set out
in Trent University’s Academic Integrity Policy. You have a responsibility to educate yourself –
unfamiliarity with the policy is not an excuse. You are strongly encouraged to visit Trent’s Academic
Integrity website to learn more: www.trentu.ca/academicintegrity.
Access to Instruction:
It is Trent University's intent to create an inclusive learning environment. If a student has a disability
and/or health consideration and feels that he/she may need accommodations to succeed in this course,
the student should contact the Disability Services Office, BH Suite 132, (705) 748-1281,
disabilityservices@trentu.ca) as soon as possible. Complete text can be found under Access to
Instruction in the Academic Calendar.
Please see the Trent University academic calendar for University Diary dates, Academic
Information and Regulations, and University and departmental degree requirements.
Last date to withdraw from Fall/Winter full courses without academic penalty in 2011-12 is February
7, 2012.
Required Texts:
Metaphysics: An Anthology (second edition) [IN SCHEDULE, "MET"]
Jaegwon Kim (Editor), Daniel Z. Korman (Editor), Ernest Sosa (Editor)
Paperback: 720 pages. Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 2 edition.
ISBN-10: 1444331027
ISBN-13: 978-1444331028
http://www.amazon.ca/Metaphysics-Anthology-JaegwonKim/dp/1444331027/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306939411&sr=1-2
Epistemology: An Anthology [IN SCHEDULE, "EPI"]
Ernest Sosa (Editor), Jaegwon Kim (Editor), Jeremy Fantl (Editor), Matthew McGrath (Editor)"
http://www.amazon.ca/Epistemology-Anthology-ErnestSosa/dp/1405169664/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306939934&sr=1-1
Paperback: 936 pages. Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 2 edition
ISBN-10: 9781405169660
ISBN-13: 978-1405169660
ASIN: 1405169664
Week-by-week schedule:
WEEK OF:
LECTURE TOPIC/ READINGS/ASSIGNMENTS
Sept.13
Introductory
Sept. 20
Metaphysics arising
read: Gottlob Frege, "The Thought"
http://philo.ruc.edu.cn/logic/reading/Frege_The Thought.pdf
Sept.27
What is and isn't
W.V.O.Quine, "On What There Is", MET 7-15.
http://tudresden.de/die_tu_dresden/fakultaeten/philosophische_fakultaet/iph/thph/braeuer/lehre/metameta/Quin
e - On What There Is.pdf
Oct. 4
How many? Identity and ontology.
Max Black, "The Identity of Indiscernibles", MET 103-108.
2
Robert M. Adams, "Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity", MET 109-121.
Oct. 11
Identity and necessity
Saul Kripke, "Identity and Necessity", MET 122-140.
Allan Gibbard, Contingent Identity, MET 141-157.
Oct. 18
Possible Worlds
Alvin Plantinga, "Modalities: Basic Concepts and Distinctions", MET 173-176
Robert M. Adams, "Actualism and Thisness", 187-207. 187
Oct. 25
READING WEEK - NO CLASS
Nov. 1
Possible Worlds?
David Lewis, "A Philosopher’s Paradise", MET 208-229.
Robert C. Stalnaker, "Possible Worlds", MET 230-235.
Gideon Rosen, "Modal Fictionalism", MET 236-254.
Nov. 8
Essences and other properties
Kit Fine, "Essence and Modality", MET 255-266.
W.V.Quine, "Natural Kinds", MET 271-280.
Nov. 15
Universals
David Lewis, "New Work for a Theory of Universals", MET 307-331.
D. M. Armstrong, "Universals as Attributes", MET 332-344.
Nov.22
Things
Gareth Adams, "Can There Be Vague Objects?" MET 158-159.
Robert C. Stalnaker, "Vague Identity", MET 159-167.
Nov. 29
Things and their parts
Peter Van Inwagen, "When are Objects Parts?", MET 627-642.
David Lewis, "Many, But Almost One", MET 642-651.
Dec. 6
summing up and review
Jan. 10
The identity of things
Roderick M. Chisholm, "Identity through Time", MET 461-471.
W.V.O.Quine, "Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis", MET 472-479.
Judith Jarvis Thomson, "Parthood and Identity Across Time", MET 480-491.
Mark Heller, "Temporal Parts of Four-Dimensional Objects", MET 492-503.
David Lewis, "The Problem of Temporary Intrinsics", MET 504-505.
Sally Haslanger, "Endurance and Temporary Intrinsics", MET 506-510.
Jan. 17
Persons I
Sidney Shoemaker, “Persons and their Pasts”, MET 533-551.
Bernard Williams, “The Self and the Future”, MET 552-561.
Derek Parfit, “Personal Identity”, MET 562-574.
David Lewis, “Survival and Identity”, MET 575-587.
Persons II
Jaegwon Kim, “Lonely Souls: Causality and Substance Dualism”, MET 588-596.
Lynne Rudder Baker, “The Ontological Status of Persons”, MET 597-609.
Jan. 24
3
Eric T. Olson, “An Argument for Animalism”, MET 610-620.
Jan. 31
Causality I
Bertrand Russell, “On the Notion of Cause”, MET 351-361.
J. L. Mackie, “Causes and Conditions”, MET 362-375.
Donald Davidson, “Causal Relations”, MET 378-385.
G.E.M. Anscombe, “Causality and Determination”, MET 386-396.
Feb 7
Causality II
David Lewis, “Causation”, MET 397-404.
Wesley C. Salmon, “Causal Connections”, MET 405-418.
Michael Tooley, “Causation: Reductionism Versus Realism”, MET 419-431.
Ned Hall, “Two Concepts of Causation”, MET 432-454.
Feb. 14
Ontology and causation
Trenton Merricks, “Epiphenomenalism and Eliminativism”, MET 673-685.
Eli Hirsch, “Against Revisionary Ontology”, MET 686-702.
Daniel Z. Korman, “Strange Kinds, Familiar Kinds, and the Charge of Arbitrariness”,
703-714.
Feb. 21
READING WEEK - NO CLASS
Feb. 28
Introduction to epistemology: scepticism
Barry Stroud, "The Problem of the External World", EPI 7-25.
G.E.Moore, “Proof of an External World”, EPI 26-28.
“Four Forms of Scepticism”, EPI 29-30.
“Certainty”, EPI 31-34.
Mar. 6
Certainty revisited
Peter Klein, “How a Pyrrhonian Skeptic Might Respond to Academic Skepticism”,
EPI 35-50.
Michael Williams, “Epistemological Realism”, EPI 51-72.
Mar. 13
Empirical Knowledge?
Roderick M. Chisholm, “The Myth of the Given”, EPI 80-93.
Wilfrid Sellars, “Does Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?”, EPI 94-98.
"Epistemic Principles", EPI 99-108.
Mar. 20
Foundational comebacks
Laurence Bonjour, “Can Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation? , EPI 109-123.
Donald Davidson, “A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge”, EPI 124-133.
Susan Haack, “A Foundherentist Theory of Empirical Justification”, EPI 134-144.
Mar. 27
Defining “knowledge”
Edmund, Gettier, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”, EPI 192-193.
Linda Zagzebski, “The Inescapability of Gettier Problems”, EPI 207-212.
Timothy Williamson, “A State of Mind”, EPI 213-230.
summing up and review
Apr. 2
4