Metaphysics

What is death, and what is its significance for our lives and how we lead them? In this course we will tack back and forth between the metaphysics of death (What is nonexistence? Are death and pre-birth metaphysically symmetrical?) and the ethical questions raised by death (Is death a misfortune-something we should fear or lament? Should we be glad not to be immortal? How should we understand the ethics of abortion and capital punishment?) Our exploration of these issues will take us through the work of many figures in the Western philosophical tradition (Plato, Augustine, Descartes, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger), but we will be concentrating on the recent and dramatic flowering of work on the subject.

Contemporary philosophy is preoccupied with the problem of "naturalism". Across the spectrum of fields and subfields, philosophers represent themselves as striving to show how their chosen subject matter can be fit into a "naturalistic" conception of the world. What is it to conceive the world in this way? Can we make satisfactory sense of what we are after, or think we are after, here? Why should it be thought the burden of philosophy to show that such a conception is attainable? How does this vision of philosopher's purpose differ, if at all, from others at work in past traditions of philosophical practice? We will explore these questions through a wide range of readings, mostly drawn from the philosophy of mind, with a bit of meta-ethics at the end of the course. (III)

In this course we will explore some of the central questions in epistemology and metaphysics. In epistemology, these questions will include: What is knowledge? What facts or states justify a belief? How can the threat of skepticism be adequately answered? How do we know what we (seem to) know about mathematics and morality? In metaphysics, these questions will include: What is time? What is the best account of personal identity across time? Do we have free will? We will also discuss how the construction of a theory of knowledge ought to relate to the construction of a metaphysical theory-roughly speaking, what comes first, epistemology or metaphysics? (B)

By a “final end” we mean any purpose, pursued by a human being, whose attainment is not viewed as instrumental to any further purpose. In the philosophical tradition there have been controversies about a set of issues surrounding that notion, and this class is going to introduce you to the most important ones. 1) Is the pursuit of a final end inevitably determined by your desire and nothing else (as Humeans and preference utilitarians think), or are final ends determined / imposed on us by any objective standard / requirement (as assumed by Kantians and classical utilitarians as well as ancient and medieval philosophers)? 2) Does the teleological structure of human agency imply that there must be a final end, and precisely one? 3) If - as many philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant and Mill, assume - a single overall end is imposed on us by an objective determinant, what is this determinant? Is it represented by a conception of human nature (rationality?), of well-being, happiness, of moral or some other type of perfection? Is it individual or social? Is it state or activity? 4) How can the answer to such questions be known? 5) In what sense can an objective end be “imposed on us”, or “binding”? 6) Does the existence of a final end - whether determined by desire or independently of it - imply that all practical reasoning should, at least implicitly, start from a conception of it? Or should you pursue such ends obliquely (Kierkegaard: The door to happiness opens outward)? - The lectures will be complemented by preparatory readings from classical and contemporary texts as well as by your own contributions to the discussion of that vital question: Can we say what we live for?

In this course we will explore some of the central questions in epistemology and metaphysics. In epistemology, these questions will include: What is knowledge? What facts or states justify a belief? How can the threat of skepticism be adequately answered? How do we know what we (seem to) know about mathematics and morality? In metaphysics, these questions will include: What is time? What is the best account of personal identity across time? Do we have free will? We will also discuss how the construction of a theory of knowledge ought to relate to the construction of a metaphysical theory—roughly speaking, what comes first, epistemology or metaphysics? (B)

Primary readings will be from Plato, Aristotle, Goethe, Kant, Hegel, and Wittgenstein. Our topics will include Platonic conceptions of eidetic form and Aristotelian conceptions of hylomorphism, their subsequent inheritance in the philosophical tradition, their transformation into German Idealist conceptions of endogenous (self-determining) form, and their significance for the philosophy of logic, mind, life, and art. Our central secondary readings will be from Gabriel Lear, Aryeh Kosman, John McDowell, Matt Boyle, Stephen Engstrom, Andrea Kern, Thomas Khurana, and Sebastian Rödl, all of whom will be invited to campus to present recent work on these topics and participate in the seminar.

Barry Stroud has made significant contributions to disparate topics in epistemology, metaphysics and the history of philosophy. His work is nonetheless unified by an overarching concern: to get into view, and take the measure of, the perennial philosophical aspiration to arrive at a completely general understanding of the relationship between the world and our conception of it. This orientation is unusual among philosophers working in the later analytic tradition. In Stroud's case it is combined with a probing exploration of questions about philosophy itself -- about its aims, its nature, and its prospects. A related recurring ambition of his work is to strictly think through the similarities and differences between the empiricist and idealist projects, thereby revealing insights and limitations in each. His work in the history of philosophy takes up these topics in connection with, above all, the following quartet of figures: Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Wittgenstein. It seeks at every point to bring out what is still philosophically alive and important in the thought of each of these authors. Stroud's work in epistemology is marked by one of the most sustained engagements with philosophical skepticism to be found in the analytic tradition, as well as with the writings of those in that tradition who themselves wrestled most with problems of skepticism -- Moore, Austin, Clarke, Cavell. Relatedly, throughout his work in metaphysics, Stroud is especially concerned to explore the nature of those categories of thinking -- such as causality, modality, and value -- that, on the one hand, appear to be essential to human thought as we know it, and yet, on the other hand, seem to be especially difficult to accommodate within a contemporary philosophical view of what ought to be regarded as belonging to the fundamental features of reality. We will read through his major writings, with one eye trained on his particular contributions to understanding these figures and topics, while seeking to uncover the underlying unity of Stroud's own overall conception of the nature and difficulty of philosophy. (III)

An introduction to metaphysics for advanced undergraduate students with prior background in philosophy and for graduate students. We shall focus on the history and the logic of the philosophical concepts of actuality (i.e., activity, existence truth.) Among the themes which we shall discuss in this class are (1) Did existence emerge as a distinct concept in greek philosophy? (2) The emergence of modal metaphysics in Arabic philosophy, (3) The essence/existence distinction and the arguments for existence of God (3) Kant's thesis: existence is not a real predicate, (4) Frege's thesis: truth is not a real predicate. Through the course we shall engage with the treatment of similar themes in the first part of Heidegger's "Basic Problems of Phenomenology" We shall read from the writings of Aristotle, Avicenna, Thomas Aquinas, Suarez, Kant, Frege, Wittgenstein, Lewis, Kripke.

This course is an introduction to some traditional philosophical problems about space and time. The course will begin with a discussion of Zeno’s paradoxes.  We will then look at the debate between Newton and Leibniz concerning the ontological status of space and time, and will examine reactions to this debate by thinkers such as Mach and Poincare. Finally, we will discuss the question of what sense is to be made of the claim that space is curved, looking at the writings of Poincare, Eddington, Einstein, Grunbaum, and others. Students will be introduced to the basics of the special and general theories of relativity, at a qualitative level. (II) (B)

Naturalism is a view that many philosophers say they accept. The view seems to have a bearing on virtually every area of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of mathematics, and ethics. What is the view? What is to be said for, or against, it?