Metaphysics
There are two versions of this course. The introductory level course focuses on three main topics: (1) time, (2) personal identity, and (3) freedom.
The content of the upper-level course changes by semester. It typically focuses on material composition, puzzles associated with material coincidence, and / or time.
Handouts
- Metaphysics Seminar: Material Objects, Properties, and Time - Spring 2025 - TBA
- Metaphysics Seminar: Composition and Time - Spring 2025
- Metaphysics Seminar: Ontology, Time, and Persistence - Fall 2022
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