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Readings

Text

There is one book for this course - Amazon logo Kim, Jaegwon, and Ernest Sosa, eds. Metaphysics: An Anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. ISBN: 063120279X.

Reading Questions

Prof. Yablo provided the following reading questions for selected lectures:

Lecture 3: "RQ1: Universals." (PDF)
Lecture 7: "RQ2: Existence." (PDF)
Lecture 12: "RQ3: Necessity." (PDF)
Lecture 17: "RQ4: Causation." (PDF)
Lecture 23: "RQ5: Mind." (PDF)

Readings by Session

LEC # TOPICS READINGS

1

What and why is a metaphysician?

  

2

Things and Properties

Amazon logo Kim, Jaegwon, and Ernest Sosa, eds. "Intro to 'Universals, properties, kinds.'" In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, p. 197. ISBN: 063120279X.

3

Properties = Universals

Amazon logo Armstrong. "Universals as attributes." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 198-208. ISBN: 063120279X.

4

Properties = (Special) Particulars

Amazon logo Lewis. "New work for a theory of universals." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 209-215. ISBN: 063120279X.

5

Properties at Work

Amazon logo Lewis. "New work." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 215-223. ISBN: 063120279X.

6

Non-existence

Amazon logo Russell. "Existence and description." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 23-35. ISBN: 063120279X.

Amazon logo Parsons. "Referring to non-existent objects." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 36-44. ISBN: 063120279X.

7

Existence

Amazon logo Quine. "On what there is." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 4-12. ISBN: 063120279X.

Amazon logo Carnap. "Empiricism, semantics, and ontology." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 13-22. ISBN: 063120279X.

8

As-if Existence

Amazon logo Walton, Kendall. "Existence as metaphor." In Empty Names, Fiction and the Puzzles of Non-Existence. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications, 2000, pp. 69-94. ISBN: 1575862549.

Yablo, Stephen. "Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?" Supplement to the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 72, no. 1 (June 1998): 229-262.

9

Identity of Indiscernibles

Amazon logo Black. "The identity of indiscernibles." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 66-71. ISBN: 063120279X.

Amazon logo Adams. "Primitive thisness and primitive identity." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 172-183. ISBN: 063120279X.

10

Contingent Identity

Amazon logo Kripke. "Identity and necessity." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 72-84. ISBN: 063120279X.

Amazon logo Yablo. "Identity, essence, and indiscernibility." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 116-129. ISBN: 063120279X.

11

Transworld Identity

Amazon logo Kripke. "Identity and necessity." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 77-80. ISBN: 063120279X.

Amazon logo Lewis. "Counterparts or double lives?" In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 154-71. ISBN: 063120279X.

12

Necessary and Contingent

Amazon logo Kim, Jaegwon, and Ernest Sosa, eds. "Intro to 'Modalities and possible worlds.'" In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 133-34. ISBN: 063120279X.

Amazon logo Plantinga. "Modalities." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 136-48. ISBN: 063120279X.

13

De Re Modality

Amazon logo Kripke. "Identity and necessity." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 80-83. ISBN: 063120279X.

14

Essence and Accident

Fine, Kit. "Essence and Modality: The Second Philosophical Perspectives Lecture." Philosophical Perspectives 8, Logic and Language (1994): 1-16.

Amazon logo Fine, Kit. "Senses of Essence." In Modality, morality and belief. Essays in honor of Ruth Barcan Marcus. Edited by Sinnott- Armstrong Walter. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 53-73. ISBN: 0521440823.

15

Possible Worlds

Rosen, Gideon. "Modal Ficitionalism." Mind 99, no. 395 (July 1990): 327-354.

Fine, Kit. "The Problem of Possibilia." (PDF)

16

Causation as Regularity

Amazon logo Mackie. "Causes and conditions." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 413-27. ISBN: 063120279X.

Amazon logo Davidson. "Causal relations." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 428-35. ISBN: 063120279X.

17

Causation as Dependence

Amazon logo Lewis. "Causation." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 436-43. ISBN: 063120279X.

18

Causal Networks

Hitchcock, Christopher. "The Intransitivity of Causation Revealed in Equations and Graphs." Journal of Philosophy 98 (2001): 273-299.

19

Holding Fixed

  

20

Sufficient Reason

Hitchcock, Christopher. "Prevention, Preemption, and the Principle of Sufficient Reason." Faculty Working Paper, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology.

21

De Facto Dependence

Amazon logo Yablo, Stephen. "Advertisement for a Sketch of an Outline of a Proto-Theory of Causation." In Causation and Counterfactuals. Edited by John Collins, Ned Hall, and L. A. Paul. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004, pp. 119-138. ISBN: 0262532565.

22

Pains and Brains

Amazon logo Kripke. "Identity and necessity." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 83-86. ISBN: 063120279X.

Yablo, Stephen. "Textbook Kripkeanism & the Open Texture of Concepts." Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 81 (2000): 98-122.

23

Multiple Realization

Amazon logo Fodor. "Special sciences." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 504-14. ISBN: 063120279X.

Amazon logo Kim. "Multiple realization & metaphysics of reduction." In Metaphysics: An Anthology. Edited by Jaegwon Kim, and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 515-30. ISBN: 063120279X.

24

Special Sciences

 

25

Last Class and Course Summary