Metaphysics and Experience

Module Guide

Semester 1, 2006/7

(Single module, Level 2, Code: PI2211)

Module Tutor: Peter Herissone-Kelly (course design) Vernon Pratt (delivery 2006/7)

Office: Harrington 134A

E-mail: v.pratt@btinternet.com

When, where, and how the module will run

When and where:

Tuesday

14.00-16.00

Harrington 339

How:

Each week there will be a two-hour session, with tutor presentation and group discussion. There will be reading each week..Some of the reading you should find difficult!

Tutor availability this semester

IOf course I am happy to try and deal with queries about anything connected with the module (reading, content of lectures, essays, and so on). You can drop in to see me on Mondays between 2.00 and 2.45pm. You can, of course, email me with queries at any time. If you need to see me outside the times mentioned above, let me know so we can find an alternative.

Module Aims and Outcomes

(a) Aims

The module addresses some of the central, most enduring, and most fundamental philosophical questions about the nature of reality, and about our experience of it. It will cover key metaphysical topics such as substance, causation, universals and particulars, actions and events, possible worlds, and the nature of time. It will also examine two varieties of idealism (the belief that the nature of objects is at least in part conditioned by our experience of them).

(b) Learning Outcomes

On completion of this module you will be able to:

demonstrate awareness of the central concepts, distinctions and issues in the field of metaphysics;
assess those concepts, distinctions and issues critically, in seminar discussions and written presentations.

Bibliography and learning support material

A useful textbook for the course is:

E.J. Lowe, A Survey of Metaphysics [2002].

Quite a few topics we cover are not addressed in this book, so you are not required to purchase it. This, however, is not to say that purchasing it would not be a good idea.

Other books and journal articles, some of which we will want to refer to, are:

Henry E. Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism [Yale University Press, 2004]
Maria Alvarez and John Hyman, ‘Agents and Their Actions’, Philosophy 73 [1998], 219–245.
Jonathan Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume [Oxford University Press,1971].
George Berkeley, Philosophical Works [Everyman, 1975].
Donald Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events [Oxford University Press, 2001].
Gareth Evans, “Things without the Mind,” in his Collected Papers [Oxford University Press, 1985].
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature [Oxford University Press, 2000].
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason [translated by Norman Kemp Smith] [MacMillan, 2003].
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding [edited by Peter H. Nidditch] [Oxford University Press, 1979]
Michael Loux [ed.], The Possible and the Actual [Cornell University Press,1980].
J.L. Mackie, “Causes and Conditions”, in Ernest Sosa and Michael Tooley [eds.] Causation [Oxford University Press, 1993].
J.L. Mackie, Problems from Locke [Clarendon Press,1976].
Colin McGinn, The Subjective View [Clarendon Press, 1983].
P.F. Strawson, The Bounds of Sense [Routledge, 1975].
Ralph Walker, Kant [Routledge, 1978].

The module, week-by-week

Week 1

Introduction: Metaphysics and its critics

Week 2

Substance: what is it that has properties?

Week 3

Primary and secondary qualities: mind-independent and mind-dependent properties.

Week 4

Berkeley’s idealism: Is the world all in the mind?

Week 5

Kant’s transcendental idealism: Creating the world of space, time, causality, and substance.

Week 6

Possible worlds: What implications does the fact that I could have been an ice-cream salesman have for the nature of reality?

Week 7

Causation: What is it for one event to cause another?

Week 8

God: Can a rational proof of His existence be given?

Week 9

Action: Are actions events?

Week 10

Time: What is the nature of temporality? Is time real?

Week 11

Universals and particulars: What sort of existence do properties have?

Week 12

Reading week.

Week 13

Revision session.

Web CT

This module guide is available via Web CT , along with all handouts from the module. There is also a discussion forum (where you can discuss the material covered with other students).

Instructions for accessing Web CT available at induction: or ask Hayley in the Office.

Or go directly to the module website:

http://www.vernonpratt.com/pi2211/pi2211home.htm

Assessment

The module is assessed by:

One 2,500 word assignment (50%)
One two hour seen examination (50%)

Assignment

Write a Plato-type dialogue (ie one following the model of one of Plato's Socratic dialogues - you studied Meno in Year 1) pursuing the following question:

"What is (or are) there?"

Your dialogue should be approximately 2,500 words long.

You can interpret the question in any coherent way - eg by pursuing Berkeley's notion that there are only minds, or the idea that there are a number of 'substances', or that there are qualities but no substances.

Remember the University policy of deducting marks from assignments that are handed in late. If you think you may have to submit your essay after the deadline has passed, please get word to me if at all possible before the deadline, and if necessary fill in an “Extenuating Circumstances” form.

Assignments should be placed in the box marked “Philosophy” in Harrington 131 by 4pm on 6th November 2006.

Plagiarism

Of course the assignment has to be your own work! You are encouraged to cite other people’s work and ideas: but the 'citing' is essential. To copy or paraphrase someone else’s statements or arguments without making it explicitly clear what you are doing —so that the reader is given the impression that this work is yours—is a form of theft called plagiarism (which can bring down some very heavy-duty penalties, as you know from induction week and the course handbook).