Syllabus and Course Information

Note: this syllabus will remain a draft until I finalize it on Monday, January 4!

Welcome! Here is the course description and syllabus, followed by course information. All bullet-pointed items that are not labelled "optional" are required reading for the respective day. There will be a synchronous Zoom lecture held at the regularly scheduled meeting times, and it will be recorded. All items on this page without a link are available on Canvas (or are required texts, see below). This entire webpage is the syllabus: read it carefully.

Course Description

What's up with reality? Metaphysics is the area of philosophy that tries to provide an answer, and this course surveys some of its central controversies and approaches. We will consider several questions throughout this course, including:

• Does god exist?

• How does the mind relate to the body?

• Do I persist through time? Would I survive teleportation to another planet? Is personal identity an illusion?

• Is time travel possible? Does time "flow" at all?

• Do we have free will?

• What, if anything, is gender? Is it distinct from biological sex?

We will devote 3-4 classes on each of these topics, though we will see that one discussion in metaphysics tends to bear on other topics. By the end of the course, students will have developed a more comprehensive view on how "things in the broadest sense of the term hang together in the broadest sense of the term" (to quote Wilfrid Sellars). Students will learn the basics of argumentative writing and analysis and apply these skills in written essays. There are weekly reading quizzes, weekly discussion sections (which may be substituted with an asynchronous option described below), and a final exam.

Syllabus

Once finalized, the readings for this course will not change without an announcement.

Week 1: God's Existence 1 (a priori approaches)

Tuesday: Argument Reconstruction

• Riddles, Chapter 4: God

• ForallX, chapter 1 (text here)

• Anselm (c. 1077 AD), Proslogion, chapters 2 and 3 (pp. 93-94)

Thursday: Objecting to Arguments

• Rowe (1976), "The Ontological Argument and Question-Begging"

Week 2: God's Existence 2 (a posteriori approaches)

Tuesday: The Argument from Design

• Paley (1800), excerpts from Natural Theology

• Hume (1779), Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, parts 4, 5, and 7 (link to Project Gutenberg text)

Thursday: The Problem of Evil

• Mackie (1955), "Evil and Omnipotence"

• Hick (1983), "The Problem of Evil" (chapter 4 of The Philosophy of Religion) (link to text)

Week 3: The Mind and the Body 1

Tuesday: Some Theories, and Dualism

• Descartes, Sixth Meditation, all (pay special attention to pp. 56-end)

• Taylor (1991), Metaphysics, chapters 2 and 4

• McWeeny (2011), "Princess Elisabeth and the Mind-Body Problem"

Thursday: Eliminative Materialism: What Thoughts?

• Churchland (1981), "Eliminative Materialism and Propositional Attitudes"

Week 4: The Mind and the Body 2

Tuesday: The Mind Isn't A Computer ...

• Searle (1980), "Minds, Brains, and Programs"

Thursday: ... Yes, It Is

• Block (1995), "The Mind as the Software of the Brain" (link to webpage)

Week 5: Personal Identity 1

Tuesday: Locke on substance and personal identity

• Locke (1690), "Of Identity and Diversity" (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, chapter 27)

• Ready (2002), "Damaris Cudworth Masham, Catharine Trotter Cockburn, and the Feminist Legacy of Locke's Theory of Personal Identity"

Thursday: Some different views on personal identity

• Dennett (1978), "Where Am I?" (Brainstorms, chapter 17)

• Kurzweil (2020), "What is the nature of personal identity?" (YouTube link)

• Riddles, Chapter 1: Personal Identity

Week 6: Personal Identity 2 / Time 1

Tuesday: What does it take to continue existing, and why care?

• Parfit (1971), "Personal Identity"

• Optional: Play Cyberpunk 2077!

Thursday: Is the world four-dimensional?

• Gamow (1988), "The World of Four Dimensions"

• Dainton (2010), Chapter 1 (from Time and Space)

Week 7: Time 2

Tuesday: Does time flow?

• Riddles, Chapter 3: Time

• Dainton (2010), Chapters 2 and 3 (from Time and Space)

Thursday: Is time travel possible?

• Lewis (1976), "The paradoxes of time travel"

Week 8: Free Will and Determinism 1

Tuesday: Some problems for free will ... and determinism

• Riddles, Chapter 6: Free Will and Determinism

• Optional: Chisholm (1964), "Human freedom and the self"

Thursday: Compatibilism

• Frankfurt (1969), "Alternate possibilities and moral responsibility"

Week 9: Free Will and Determinism 2; Essences

Tuesday: Libertarianism

• Steward (2009), "The truth in compatibilism and the truth of libertarianism"

Thursday: Essences

• Witt, Metaphysics of Gender, preface and chapter 1

Week 10: Gender

• Halwani, "Sexual Orientation, Sex, and Gender" (1000 Word Philosophy article)

Tuesday: Gender Is Not Biological Sex ...

• Witt (2011), Metaphysics of Gender, chapters 2 and 4

Thursday: ... or is it?

• Bogardus (2020), "Evaluating Arguments for the Sex/Gender Distinction"

Course Assignments, Evaluation, and Policies

Lecture Attendance Policy

Though students are required to view lecture, students are not required to attend live sessions. The live sessions occur at the regularly scheduled time on Zoom.

I highly recommend attending live session for two reasons. Firstly, though this is a philosophy course, it is more like a math or logic course than you might expect. Thus, it is important for you to understand specific examples provided in class much like you would need to understand a calculus problem. It is far easier to learn such material if you come to class and participate---ask questions, throw digital fruit at the instructor, or make snide remarks, but do what it takes to pay attention! Secondly, I want to work with you to make distance learning a success. Yet I will be less forgiving if a student, say, fails to do something that I mention two or three times in lecture. Having taught three terms on Zoom already, I can tell you that those who never attend synchronous sessions are far more prone to fall behind.

Grade Distribution

This course will be evaluated as follows:

• 10% Section Participation
• 20% Written Assignment 1 (due Monday, January 18 at 12p, noon)
• 20% Written Assignment 2 (due Monday, February 22 at 12p, noon)
• 20% Weekly Quizzes (due every Friday at 12p, noon, 10 total)
• 30% Final Exam (due March 18 at 12p, noon)

Grade scale

• A+ = 96-100%
• A = 93-96%
• A- = 90-92%
• B+ = 87-89%
• B = 83-86%
• B- = 80-82%
• C+ = 77-79%
• C = 73-76%
• C- = 70-72%
• D+ = 67-69%
• D = 60-66%
• F = 0-59%

Weekly Online Quizzes

Quizzes will be due at noon (12p PST) of the Friday of every week, including week 1. There are thus 10 quizzes in total. Late quizzes are not accepted. Each quiz will be available on the Tuesday before the due date. The quizzes cover the material retrospectively for the week (i.e., a quiz due on the Friday of Week 3 covers material from Week 3), and some of the questions might be cumulative (from material earlier in the course). The quiz is open-book and untimed. Collaboration is not allowed. I will drop exactly one (1) quiz from your final quiz grade.

Section Participation

Students can obtain credit for section participation in one of two ways:

• (a) Attend and participate in the section in which you are enrolled. Attendance will be taken.

• (b) Submit a 300-word response to a prompt circulated every week on Monday. Post your response under the relevant prompt in the "Discussions" section of Canvas. The response must be posted by midnight on the Friday of that week.

I will drop the lowest participation grade for one week (there are 9 weeks total; you will be graded on 8 weeks).

How to Format All of Your Written Work

For your problem sets and your newspaper-style article, use standard formatting and citation procedures. I don't care which standards you use -- just be consistent (MLA, APA, Chicago, Turabian, and other style guides are all fine). These assignments must:

• Be typed.

• Be double-spaced.

• Have 1-inch margins.

• Be in a readable font like Times New Roman.

• Have a header and a descriptive title (e.g., "Problem Set 1")

• Provide proper citations when needed.

• Provide a works cited page when needed.

Papers that violate these requirements are subject to a lower grade. Note that failing to properly cite material is a form of plagiarism, so be diligent!

Written Essays

There will be two written assignments this quarter: one "essay training" assignment (due Monday, January 18 at 12p, noon) and one standard essay (due Monday, February 22 at 12p, noon). All prompts will be distributed at least 10 days before they are due.

Submit your work in the required format outlined above. There is a late penalty of one letter grade per day late, unless you submit an excuse from the Dean or a doctor.

Students may request a regrade from the instructor after consulting the TA for her rationale regarding grading. Regrades are subject to lower the grade as well as increase it.

Final Exam

The exam will be open book and cumulative. The exam is due on March 18 at 12p (noon). I will release the exam 48 hours prior to when the exam is due (March 16 at 12p noon). All responses must be typed using our standard course format for written work.

Academic Integrity and Honesty

All suspicions of academic misconduct will be reported to the Academic Integrity Office according to university policy. Academic misconduct is not just blatant cheating (e.g., copying off another student during an exam), but includes copying other students' essays; copying or using old essays; forgetting to cite material you took from an outside resource; turning in work completed in total or in part by another. This is an incomplete list; if you have questions concerning academic misconduct it is your responsibility to ask me for advice. I will follow the official university policies outlined here. Ignorance is usually not a defense in cases of academic dishonesty, so it is your responsibility to become acquainted with these policies.

Accommodations for Disabilities

Accommodations will be made for students with verifiable disabilities. See the UCSD OSD/DCC website for more information.

Course Materials, Resources, and Acknowledgements

Required Materials

The only text that you must purchase is Riddles of Existence ("Riddles") by Earl Connee and Ted Sider (Amazon link). You may use the first edition or the second edition, it doesn't matter.

All other texts will be made available on Canvas or this syllabus.

Resources

Several resources for students new to philosophy or philosophical writing are available on my teaching homepage. For those wanting more, that page also contains podcasts and material for further enrichment ;-)

Acknowledgements

My syllabus is heavily indebted to those by Tom Dougherty, Craig Callender, Jonathan Cohen, and Christian Wuetrich.