Metaphysics M.A. Exam / Spring 2006
Answer one question from each part. Time limit: three hours.
Part I
1. What is the relation between a statue and the lump of clay of which it is made?
2. What is four-dimensionalism? What can be said for and against it?
3. Under what conditions do many objects compose one thing?
Part II
4. When philosophers speak of properties, what sort(s) of things are they talking about?
Why posit properties? Does positing properties do any explanatory work?
5. Does the past exist? Does the future? Discuss.
6. What is point of invoking possible worlds when discussing modality? What must the
worlds be like if it is to succeed?
Part III
7. Are all ontological disputes ultimately merely verbal?
8. Can causation be understood as a kind of dependence of one event upon another?
Discuss why one might think it can, and why one might think it can’t.
9. The death of correspondence theories of truth has been widely heralded. What exactly
is a correspondence theory of truth, and why would someone be tempted to hold such?
Why are such theories supposed to be untenable? Are they?