Metaphysics  

This course typically covers topics relating to ontology, abstract objects, time, ontological commitment, paraphrase, possible worlds, properties, the method of ontology (metaontology), material composition, puzzles associated with material coincidence, personal identity, freedom, life, and death.

Videos

Videos

• Death, Well-being, and the Difference-Making Principle
• Four Dimensionalism, A Puzzle of Material Coincidence, and the Humanistic Consequences of 4D
• Experience and Non-Present Objects
• Four Theories of Time - An Introduction
• Letting the Child Drown - Moral Indifference in a World of Possible Worlds
• Ontological Commitment and Paraphrase
• The triviality of ontology partially considered: Permissivism about abstracta

Slides for 100-level Metaphysics

Unit 1: Time

• Intuitions on time
• Introduction to Theories of time
• Moving spotlight theory
• Eternalism
• Presentism and the growing block

Unit 2: Personal Identity

• Synchronic Identity
• Diachronic Psychological Identity
• Reduplication Problems
• Diachronic Physical Identity
• Further Fact and Hybrid Theories
• The Characterization Question

Unit 3: Freedom

• Synchronic Identity
• Compatibilism
• Incompatibilism
• Libertarianism and Indeterminism
• Extra-factor and dualisms
• Simple Indeterminism
• Hard Determinism
• God and Freedom