Topics in Metaphysics
PHIL 390
Spring 2025 not offered
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| This course may be repeated for credit. |
Philosophy, especially in the European tradition, has perennially been interested in necessary features of reality, and in the nature of necessity itself. It has also been inveterately invested in rationality, and in discovering its nature. Is there such a thing as necessity that stems from rationality? One answer that has had much staying power is that logic and its laws frame the most fundamental type of necessity: it is impossible, for example, that there both is and isn't anything that travels faster than the speed of light in vacuum, for any such supposed situation violates the logical law of non-contradiction, and so is in a sense not really intelligible. (Except possibly in Australia.) This seminar is an examination of this answer through discussion of views of two seminal figures in modern European philosophy: Immanuel Kant and Gottlob Frege. We will focus on a recently prominent style of reading Kant as inheriting and transforming Aristotle's hylomorphism, and on the ways in which some proponents of this style of interpretation see Frege's conception of logic as closer to that of G. W. Leibniz. We will assess the extent to which such interpretations may be sustained by the actual writings of the philosophers just mentioned, as well as how well they hold up philosophically. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA PHIL |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: PHIL293 |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
Major Readings:
Classic and contemporary sources.
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Examinations and Assignments:
One seminar paper, and possibly also other assignments. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This is an advanced seminar in philosophy, and so students will need to have a general background in the history of philosophy, such as acquired from Phil 201 or 202, and some knowledge of logic, such as acquired from Phil 231, Phil 290, or Math 243, and probably also one course in philosophy beyond the introductory level. |
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