Metaphysics Study Questions – SUMMER 2006
QUESTIONS
1.
Are there any good reasons to believe in “bare substrata”?
2.
To some it has seemed obvious that truth is a sort of correspondence with the
facts or with some other part of the world. This view has, however, come under
severe attack. What can be said for and against it?
3.
Can two distinct things be in the same place at the same time? If so, how? If not,
why not?
4.
Are any of our empirical beliefs necessary? Are any of our contingent beliefs a
priori?
5.
In what respects is time analogous to space?
6.
Under what conditions do many objects compose one object?
7.
What is physicalism? Which of the following can a physicalist admit into her
ontology: numbers, sets, universals, propositions? Justify your answer.
8.
Quine has offered a criterion for evaluating the existential commitments of a
discourse. He has also described this criterion as trivial. Describe the criterion
and what philosophical work he (and others) have tried to make it do. Is the
criterion trivial?
9.
Why has the notion of de re modality been thought by some to be suspect? How,
if at all, can this notion be made sense of?
10.
Are all ontological disputes merely verbal disputes?
11.
Can the nominalist’s ontology of concrete particulars do all the philosophical
work that needs to be done?
12.
It has been said that the view that objects have temporal parts is a “crazy
metaphysic”. What are temporal parts supposed to be? What arguments are there
in favor of the idea that objects have temporal parts? Why is the view supposed
by some to be crazy? How, exactly, do we decide whether any particular object
has temporal parts?