PHIL 172: Metaphysics
PHIL 172: Metaphysics
The Generic Catalog Description
This course will take up basic questions about reality and inquire into fundamental principles by which the nature of reality can be coherently explained. An analysis of issues such as: the nature of being and existence; the principles in terms of which anything (e.g., physical and non-physical things, God) is said to be real; and the nature of the relations between things (e.g., space and time, mechanical and goal-directed causality).
PHIL 172: Metaphysics
James Blachowicz
Is there a knowledge of the nature of reality which is neither a material discipline like physics and sociology nor a formal discipline like logic and mathematics? We shall explore this question--the question of the very possibility of metaphysics--in two separate historical contexts.
In an ancient context, Parmenides first established a dichotomy of "knowledges" in which there was no room for metaphysics; Plato challenged this dichotomy (unsuccessfully, I think); Aristotle also challenged it and provided a more interesting argument for the legitimacy of metaphysics. In a modern context, these three roles were played (in an interesting historical parallel) by Hume, Kant and Hegel.
Typical Readings:
Parmenides: Poem
Plato: Parmenides, Sophist
Aristotle: Metaphysics
Hume: selections from his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Kant: selections from his Critique of Pure Reason
Hegel: preface from his Phenomenology of Spirit
PHIL 172: Metaphysics
Alfredo Mac Laughlin
In this course we will examine some basic philosophical questions about reality (being and existence, unity and plurality of beings, time and
change, God and creation, and others). During the first part of the course we will focus on the historical treatment given to these questions by the Western (Platonic and Aristotelian) philosophical traditions, in their original shape and as they developed through the course of Medieval philosophy, up to their synthesis by Thomas Aquinas. In the second part of the course we will use the concepts learned in the first part to engage in deeper reflection about specific issues, such as the problem of evil, fate and predestination, the notions of realism and objectivity, and the relations between metaphysical views and our scientific view of the universe.
Given the historical focus of the first part of this course, students must be willing to put their minds to the analysis of a very abstract set of concepts and terminology, and immerse themselves in the particular (perhaps unfamiliar) context in which these discussions were carried through.
PHIL 172: Metaphysics
Nicholas Mowad
This course will be about absolutely nothing. Is nothing? If so, what is it? We will examine what negativity is, how it is (if indeed it is), how it is present, what this means for our understanding of what it is to be, etc. We will probably restrict ourselves to modern philosophy: Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Jaspers.