Philosophy Death

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Is the mind a different kind of thing than the body? When you mold clay into a statue, does something new come into existence? Is a living organism anything more than the atoms and quarks that make it up? Taking a stand on these issues is taking a stand on how many kinds of things there are. For example, if you think that there is only one sort of thing, then you might think that there are only thoughts and no bodies. This is just one of many ways of being a monist. If you think that there are two sorts of things–say, that the animal is different from the atoms and molecules that make it up–then you are a type of dualist. In this course, we will critically assess our presuppositions about what there is by looking at different philosophers’ answers to the question of what ‘substance’ is and how many there are. We will read Spinoza (a monist), Descartes (a dualist) and Aristotle, who thought that there were at least as many kinds of thing as there are kinds of animal! We will also consider challenges to these views from Parmenides, Leibniz and Locke. We will think about whether the reasons that each gives for their views are good reasons. Students will write two short papers, each examining the view of a different author, and a final, longer paper. Students will be equipped to offer a position on what there is and arguments in favor of and against that position.