863: Metaphysics Seminar

This is an old page for an old class. For my current classes, see this page.

We’ll discuss Fine’s paper this Friday. Try to also read Sider, Ch 11 and poke around in some of the others parts of Sider’s book. In particular, if you want to talk a lot about Fine’s reality operator, you should read Sider, Ch 8.

No seminar today, obviously. We’ll figure out when to reschedule.

If you haven’t sent me your proposal, do so soon. For those that have sent proposals, I’ll try to get you some feedback ASAP.

Reminder that next week we meet on Friday at 3:30, as Alan Hajek will be giving a talk on Tuesday.

My plan for this week was to discuss Haslanger and Zimmerman. Given the extra week, go ahead and read Fine.

Read

  • Haslanger, “Persistence Through Time”
  • Zimmerman, “The A-theory of Time, the B-theory of Time and ‘Taking Tense Seriously’”

For background on the “Problem of Temporary Intrinsics”, you may wish to look at

  • Haslanger, Sally (1989). “Endurance and Temporary Intrinsics.” Analysis, 49: 119–125.
  • Mark Hinchliff (1996). The Puzzle of Change. Philosophical Perspectives 10.

Both are available on JSTOR.

For Feb 2nd, read Prior, ‘Changes in Events and Changes in Things’ (I’ll post a copy up ASAP).

Also, I don’t have any idea what this shows: Thinking of the Past or Future Causes Us to Sway Backward or Forward

For Tuesday, 1/26, read Smart 1949, “The River of Time” and the three articles by Schlesinger. I realize this is too much. At a minimum, you should read Smart 1949 and Schlesinger 1969.

For Tuesday, 1/19, I want you to be thinking about (among other things)

  • McTaggart’s Paradox (McTaggart 1927, sections 329—332, pp. 20—22; Broad 1938 p. 309ff)
  • Broad on Absolute Becoming (pp. 277–281). What is Absolute Becoming? What work does Broad think it does?

Also, I walked away from Tuesday’s seminar with someone’s marked up copy of McTaggart. It is stapled twice across the top.

For Tuesday, 1/19, read

  • Christensen, “McTaggart’s Paradox and the Nature of Time”
  • Williams, “The Myth of Passage”

Though I won’t be assigning it, I strongly encourage you to read

  • Dummett, M. (1960). “A Defense of McTaggart’s Proof of the Unreality of Time.” The Philosophical Review, 69(4), 497—504.

Links to supplementary readings should be fixed.

For Tuesday, 1/12, read the first two articles on the reading list:

  • McTaggart, “Time”
  • Broad, “Ostensible Temporality”

As discussed in class, our scheduled meetings for Tuesday, 2/23 and 3/2 have been moved to Friday, 2/26 and 3/5. They will still be at 3:30.