Spring 2003
MWF 12:55-1:45
Location: OSH 336
Elijah Millgram

A little over two-and-a-half-thousand years ago, Thales of Miletus began philosophy (and maybe physics) by asking what the world was made of. (Water, he thought.) A little over fifty years ago, W. V. Quine proposed a way of answering that question which shaped the development of twentieth-century analytic metaphysics. We will trace the influence of Quine's criterion for existence through such topics as events and actions, radical indeterminacy of interpretation, modality and possible worlds, reductionism and supervenience, the problem of universals, the problem of induction, and the persistence of objects over time.

Prerequisites: None, but a symbolic logic class would be helpful.

• Readings

• Requirements

• Weekly Assignments

4/28: Graded final papers are available in the Philosophy Department.

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