Syllabus
Philosophy 5550 - Proseminar in Metaphysics and Epistemology
Course Description
This team-taught proseminar in metaphysics and epistemology will focus on
important areas in metaphysics and epistemology in five three-week sections. A different
person will teach each section, except that in addition to teaching his own module,
Graham Oddie will be filling in for Robert Hanna, who is on sabbatical this year.
The general topics to be covered, in order, are as follows:
Possible worlds semantics for modal operators
(Forbes: Jan 16, 23, 30)
Skepticism, direct awareness, and direct realism
(Tooley: Feb 6, 13, 20)
Properties, states of affairs, truthmakers
(Oddie: Feb 27, Mar 6, 13)
Properties, states of affairs, truthmakers
(Oddie: Mar 20, Apr 3, 10)
Ontology, mereology and ontological dependence
(Koslicki: April 19, 20, 21)
Course Requirements
(1) For the first section of the course, homework problems will be assigned.
(2) For each of the other four sections of the course, a short paper will be required.
Length: 5-7 pages, or about 1500-2000 words, each.
Topics
(1) One's paper is to be on some topic covered in the section in question.
(2) Choose a topic that is sufficiently circumscribed that you can discuss it
thoroughly, rather than a large topic where you can only skim the surface.
(3) A list of some possible topics will be made available before the beginning
of each of the last four sections of the seminar, so that you can be thinking
about what your essay will be on well before the paper is due.
(4) It is possible, but perhaps unlikely, that you can negotiate a different
topic from any on the list with the relevant professor.
Due Dates
Each of the four papers is due by midnight on the Monday following the
last class of the section in question, except for the last section, when the paper
will be due on Friday 26th April.
Submission: Papers should be submitted in the form of hard copies.
Content
Your papers should be written like professional journal articles. Accordingly,
they should have the following elements:
Thesis: Your thesis should be non-trivial, and it should be stated clearly and explicitly,
early on. Your thesis can be a positive philosophical point that connects up in some
clear way with the readings, or it can be a criticism of a claim or argument advanced in
the readings.
Argument: Your argument for the thesis should start from premises that would seem
plausible to the great majority of people, including most people who have not already
accepted your thesis.
Replies to objections: Consider how someone doubting your thesis might object to your
argument, and say why these objections ultimately do not persuade you.
Because these papers are quite short, do not spend more than a page explaining or setting
up the issue, and avoid all digressions. Aim at a polished paper, free of errors of
grammar, punctuation, spelling, word usage, formatting, and the like.
Readings
One book has been ordered for the course, and is available from the University bookstore:
Michael Huemer, Skepticism and the Veil of Perception, (New York: Rowman & Littlefield,
2001).
Otherwise, all readings for a given module will be distributed by the instructor as the
start-date for that module aproaches.
For three of the sections, the readings are as follows:
Topics and Readings for Section 1: Possible Worlds Semantics
We will begin by contrasting the modal operators “it is possible that” (w) and “it is necessary
that” (p) with the familiar operators of non-modal sentential logic on the other: the latter are
truth-functional, the former not. Consequently, the modal operators can't be explained by
truth-tables. We investigate the use of possible worlds semantics instead, and see how this
gives rise to a variety of systems of sentential modal logic. We then explore how possible
worlds semantics can be extended to first-order logic, and finally, how it can be applied to yield
semantics for conditionals other than the material one, especially the counterfactual “if it {were/
had been that}… then it {would be/would have been that}…” (pf).
January 16: Sentential Possible Worlds Semantics
Graeme Forbes, The Metaphysics of Modality, Chapter 1, Sections 1-3.
January 23: First-Order Possible Worlds Semantics
Graeme Forbes, The Metaphysics of Modality, Chapter 2, Sections 1 and 2, and, if time permits,
Chapter 3, Section 4.
January 30: Counterfactuals and Other Conditionals
David Lewis, “Counterfactual Dependence and Time’s Arrow”; Kit Fine, “Critical Notice of Counterfactuals"
Frank Döring, “Counterfactuals” (in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessible
online at no charge thro’ the library when you are on campus)
Topics and Readings for Section 2: Skepticism, Direct Awareness, and Direct Realism
February 6: Skepticism and an External, Physical World
G. E. Moore, "Hume's Theory Examined," Chapter VI of Some Main Problems of Philosophy.
Michael Huemer, “The Lure of Radical Skepticism,” Chapter II of Skepticism and the Veil of Perception,
pp. 7-25.
Michael Huemer, “Easy Answers to Skepticism,” Chapter III of Skepticism and the Veil of Perception,
pp. 27-49.
Hilary Putnam, "Brains in a Vat," Chapter 2 of Reason, Truth, and History.
February 13: Direct Awareness: Physical Objects or Sense Data?
Michael Huemer, “A Version of Direct Realism,” Chapter IV of Skepticism and the Veil of Perception,
pp. 51-92.
February 20: Foundationalism and the Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism
Michael Huemer, “A Version of Foundationalism,” Chapter V of Skepticism and the Veil of Perception,
pp. 93-117.
Michael Huemer, “Compassionate Phenomenal Conservatism,” Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research 74 (2007): 30-55
.
Topics and Readings for Sections 3, and 4: TBA
Topics and Readings for Section 5: Ontology, Mereology and Ontological Dependence
We begin this module by investigation the conception of ontology (the study of being) that
comes out of the work of Quine and Carnap. Next, we turn to a widely accepted theory of parts
and wholes (standard or classical mereology) and consider its strengths and weaknesses for different
domains. Finally, we consider more recent work on ontological dependence, grounding
and fundamentality, by Kit Fine and others. This leads us to question whether the Quinean/
Carnapian approach to ontology really captures what is most interesting about this discipline.
April 19: Ontology as the Study of What There Is (Exists)
W. V. O. Quine, “On What There Is”
Rudolf Carnap, “Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology”
Donald Davidson, “The Logical Form of Action Sentences”
David Lewis, Selections from On the Plurality of Worlds.
April 20: Classical and Non-Classical Mereology
Henry Leonard and Nelson Goodman, “The Calculus of Individuals and Its Uses”
David Lewis, Selections from Parts of Classes.
Ted Sider, Selections from Four-Dimensionalism.
April 21: Essence, Necessity, Ontological Dependence and Grounding
Kit Fine, “Essence and Modality”
Kit Fine, “Ontological Dependence"