Introduction to Metaphysics

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Metaphysics is often described as the part of philosophy concerned with fundamental questions about the nature of reality. These questions may pertain to ourselves: What is the self? Is there one? What is required for our identity over time? Do we have free will? Are we just purely physical entities? Or they may pertain to pervasive features of reality in general: What is existence? How is it that different things can in some sense be the same? Does time really flow? What is it for one thing to cause another? Some pertain to whether the physical universe is all there is: Is there a being – a God perhaps – distinct from this world? Indeed, why does anything exist at all, rather than not? How might we even begin to answer these difficult questions? You can expect a course on metaphysics to take up a number of these issues, and quite possibly also others not mentioned here.