(MCR = Metaphysics: Contemporary Readings)
Weeks One-Three: The Objective and the Subjective
- Week One: Introduction
- Week Two:
- Nagel, ‘The Objective and Subjective'
- Van Inwagen, ‘Objectivity’ (MCR, 614)
- Week Three:
- Lycan, W., ‘What is the Subjectivity of the Mental?’ Philosophical Perspectives 4 (1990), 109-130
Weeks Four-Eight: Existence and Ontological Commitment
- Week Four:
- Quine, W. V. O., ‘On What There Is’ (MCR, 42)
- Week Five:
- Fine, K., ‘What is Metaphysics?’
- Week Six:
- Russell, B., ‘A World of Universals’ (MCR, 14)
- William, D. C., ‘The Elements of Being (MCR, 57)
- Week Seven:
- Heller, ‘Temporal Parts of Four-Dimensional Objects’ (MCR, 418)
- Van Inwagen, P., ‘The Doctrine of Arbitrary Undetached Parts,’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 62 (1981), 123-137
- Week Eight:
- McTaggart, J. M. E., ‘Time’ (MCR, 350)
- Broad, C. D., ‘Ostensible Temporality’ (MCR, 363)
- Prior, A. N., ‘The Notion of the Present’ (MCR, 379)
Week Nine: Mid-semester Break
Weeks Ten-Twelve: Essentialism and Modality
- Week Ten:
- Fine, K., ‘Essence and Modality,’ Philosophical Perspectives 8 (1994), 1–16
- Lewis, D., ‘Possible Worlds’ (MCR, 160)
- Plantinga, ‘Actualism and Possible Worlds (MCR, 168)
- Week Eleven:
- Kripke, S., ‘Identity and Necessity’ (MCR, 218)
- Week Twelve:
- Kripke, Naming and Necessity, Lectures I and II
Weeks Thirteen-Fifteen: Realism and Anti-Realism
- Week Thirteen:
- Dummett, M., ‘Realism’ (MCR, 549)
- Fine, K., ‘The Question of Realism,’ Philosophers’ Imprint 1 (2001)
- Week Fourteen:
- Aristotle, Categories 1-5
- Week Fifteen: Open
Weeks Sixteen: Quodlibetal