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PHIL41700

Academic Year 2024/2025

Metaphysics (TCD) (PHIL41700)

Subject:
Philosophy
College:
Social Sciences & Law
School:
Philosophy
Level:
4 (Masters)
Credits:
10
Module Coordinator:
Professor Rowland Stout
Trimester:
Autumn
Mode of Delivery:
On Campus
Internship Module:
No
How will I be graded?
Letter grades

Curricular information is subject to change.

In this module, students will explore contemporary issues in metaphysics, with a view to developing their own ideas about the nature and purpose of metaphysics. Metaphysics presents itself as the study of the fundamental nature of the world. It promises to provide a guide to reality at its most objective and deepest. Yet debate over particular topics in metaphysics often involves quite different appeals to science, experience, intuition and explanation. In this module, we’ll examine metaphysical debates about scientific modalities (law, causation, chance), consider what standards are driving these debates, and in what sense these debates are substantive.

About this Module

Learning Outcomes:

On successful completion of this module, students will be able to:

Understand the main positions of modal realism and modal anti-realism
Construct arguments for metaphysical views they wish to defend and criticize arguments for metaphysical views they wish to reject.
Take an informed view of where they stand on the question of modal realism
Identify the main problems that are faced by their preferred view

Indicative Module Content:

We’ll explore a range of positions, including ‘deflationary’ positions that take metaphysical debates to be non-substantive, and competing visions of what metaphysics is supposed to be.

Student Effort Hours:
Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

22
Project Supervision

4
Autonomous Student Learning

174
Total

200

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
To be supplied by the TCD Lecturer

Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 

Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade In Module Component Repeat Offered
Participation in Learning Activities: 1 presentation (20% of overall mark) Week 6 Standard conversion grade scale 40% No

20

 Yes
Assignment(Including Essay): 1 3000 word essay (80% of overall mark) Week 15 Standard conversion grade scale 40% No

80

 Yes

Carry forward of passed components
No
 

Remediation Type Remediation Timing
In-Module Resit Prior to relevant Programme Exam Board
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 

Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Feedback individually to students, post-assessment This can be through different approaches such as oral, audio, video and/or written/annotated feedback, either in-class, out of class, in meetings, through the VLE, by email, using rubrics, etc.

An extensive and detailed reading list will be made available at the start of the module. But among the essential readings for the early weeks of the course will be

Seager, William. 2000. ‘Metaphysics, Role in Science’. In W. H. Newton-Smith (ed.) A Companion to the Philosophy of Science Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell.

Quine, Willard V. 1948. ‘On What There Is’. The Review of Metaphysics, 2(5): 21−38.

Carnap, Rudolf. 1950. ‘Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology.’ Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 4: 20−40. Reprinted as a supplement to Meaning and Necessity: A Study in Semantics and Modal Logic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956, pp. 205–21.
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