Metaphysics
PH39C: Second Semester 2002/3
The following crude list gives the chapters of Lowe's book that we shall be dealing with at each lecture and the papers you should read in preparation for the seminar session. Links exist to Powerpoint notes on some lectures.
date lecture
seminar
120
122
127 2
metatorr
129 3 + chap11
203 4 + words
logibez
205 5
210 6 + essence
jackson metaburg
212 7
217 ?
ontokach ontorees
219 8
224 9
modalrealism
226 10
303 dispositions
metaray metadowe
305 11
310 12
metamccu
312 13
317 break
319 break
324 14
chap08
326 15
331 17
timelives
402 18
407 no meetings
409 19
414 20 + apex
metalamb naturalism
416 how m possible + prscogprt
Links
Other papers you should read:
J.R. Lucas, 'On the Nature of Things'
Other sites you might check:
Dorr has a course in metaphysics with quite a lot of lecture notes etc. (pdf files)
The following list gives links by general topic in the order we are moving through Lowe's book.
There are three sites dealing with Vagueness:
The Stanford Encyclopedia has an article by Sorenson (it also has an article on the Sorites)
A recent PhD student, Needle, has an amazingly comprehensive site with lots of links to articles and abstracts
Weatherson has several things on his site
On temporal parts, endurance versus perdurance, you could check these:
Balashov, 'Relativistic Objects' Noûs 33 (1999): 644-662
Oakes, 'Causal Realism and the Structure of the Perdurance Series'
Sider, 'Four Dimensionalism', The Philosophical Review 106 (1997): 197-231. (You can read almost everything Sider has published by checking his site.)
Weatherson, 'Growing Individuals and Temporary Intrinsics'
For questions on constitution:
Baker holds a discussion of her book, Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View
Weatherson has a review of Wiggins
Salsbury, 'Van Inwagen and Gunk: A Response to Sider' Sorites 7: 21-27
For the essential/accidental distinction:
Jim Pryor has some lecture notes
There is some relevant discussion in a paper on Natural Kinds
C.D. Broad's 1949 discussion of Leibniz is in a similar ball-park
For modal fictionalism:
Nolan in the Stanford Encyclopedia
For causation:
Schaffer on the metaphysics of causation in the Stanford Encyclopedia, which connects with several other discussions there
Menzies has several papers in .pdf format
Hartry Field has a good survey (pdf)
Dan Hausman has posted a chapter of his book that provides a discussion of Hume's view (pdf)
There is a summary with comments of Mackie's book on causation, and of Lewis' position; here is a list of the whole lot of summaries by Alfred Freddoso
For agent causation:
Daniel von Wachter, Agent Causation: Before and After the Ontological Turn
George Wilson on Action in the Stanford Encyclopedia
(At something of a tangent to our interests, but with a lot of very good stuff, is Ted Honderich's website on determinism and freedom)
Ian Thompson has a section of a book on issues relating to the status of dispositions
For absolute versus relational space-time:
Janis in Stanford Encyclopedia on Conventionality of Simultaneity
Price, Lecture on space and time (pdf)
For incongruent counterparts:
Oliver Pooley (2001) Handedness, parity violation, and the reality of space (link is to an abstract from where you can get the whole paper in pdf)
Huggett has some skeletal lecture notes
anonymous, Extended Simples, Space, and Shape
For McTaggart on time and related issues:
McTaggart's own argument "The Unreality of Time"
Ned Markosian, How Fast does Time Pass? (pdf)
Steven Savitt (Stanford Encyclopedia) Being and Becoming in Modern Physics
Soshichi Uchii, McTaggart on the Unreality of Time (his entire set of notes on Space-Time may be useful)
anonymous On the Existence of Time
anonymous (Otago University) McTaggart’s Proof of the Unreality of Time
(Google cache) and part 2
For properties:
Nick Zangwill, 'Negative Properties, Determination and Conditionals'
C.D. Broad 'Reality' (1919)
Ed Brandon (January 2003)
Revised 14 April 2003