Course Description: 

This course will concern itself with contemporary analytic metaphysics.  Issues to be explored include the following:  existence (both the existence of universals and the existence and nature of concrete particulars), identity, modality and possible worlds, things and their persistence, causation, and the analysis of events.

Course Format:

Classes will be a combination of lecture and focused discussion of the texts.  Students are expected to have read (and carefully reflected upon!) the material prior to class.

Course Requirements:

Students will be expected to write three short essays (6-8 pp.) on topics provided by the instructor.  These will be handed out during the course of the semester and will be due on the dates shown in the schedule below.  Graduate students in philosophy will have the option of writing a longer term paper instead.

Required Text:

Metaphysics: An Anthology.  Eds. Jaegwon Kim and Ernest Sosa.  Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.