Introduction to Metaphysics

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

We'd like to know what there is in the world -- for philosophical reasons, and for practical reasons, and also out of good old-fashioned curiosity. This class will focus on one way to think rigorously about how to think about what there is. We'll discuss key introductory questions in metaphysics: questions about the existence and nature of causation, dispositions, possibility, objective truth, and fundamentality. And we'll think about answers to those questions which are entailed by valid arguments with plausible premises. Thus, we'll think about simple arguments for and against counterfactual theories of the phenomena above; simple arguments for and against skepticism about the existence of all those entities; simple arguments for and against primitivism about all those entities; and so on. Along the way we'll introduce some basic logical vocabulary which will make evaluating the soundness of those arguments easier. The goal for this class is to improve your ability to reason clearly about what there is, or might be.