PHIL 330: Metaphysics

Larkin: Fall 2003

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Week One

I. Starting Points

A. Student Preconceptions

1. What is Philosophy?

2. What is Metaphysics?

B. Professor Bias

1. Philosophy

a. A way of doing things (the Philosophic Virtue)

b. A priori sciences

c. Normative sciences

d. Meaning, scope, and limits of evaluative concepts/properties

2. Metaphysics

a. Not “First Philosophy”

b. Metaphysics as adjudicator between Scientific and Common Sense Images

II. Syllabus

A. Course Objectives

1. DO Philosophy: Critically examine some of our core beliefs about the nature of ourselves and how we fit into the natural world

2. Competing images of human nature

3. Four traditional problems

4. Argument analysis

B. Course Requirements

1. Active Learning

2. Benchmark Grading

III. Critical Thinking and Arguments for the existence of God

A. The Philosophic Virtue

1. Optimal balance of open-mindedness and skepticism.

a. Extreme Open-Mindedness = Believe everything and anything:

Good strategy for maximizing true beliefs (but also maximizes false beliefs)

b. Extreme Skepticism = Believe nothing no matter how much evidence/support:

Good strategy for minimizing false beliefs (but also minimizes true beliefs)

c. Ideal = Maximize true beliefs while minimizing false beliefs:

Be willing to entertain any ideas/propositions but accept only those that meet certain reasonable rational standards.

d. We approach the ideal of Philosophic Virtue through critical thinking—thinking that is rationally reflective and consciously controlled.

2. Promotes: more effective, efficient, and autonomous thought and action.

B. Arguments

1. Structure vs. Content

2. Refutation by Logical Analogy

3. Ontological Argument

C. Deductive Concepts and Forms

1. Validity and Soundness

2. Common Forms

3. Cosmological Argument

D. Inductive Concepts and Forms

1. Strength and Cogency

2. Common Forms

3. Teleological Argument

IV. The Meaning of Life

A. Discussion

1. Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? What do we mean by ‘meaning’ here?

2. Can there be meaningful life without God?

B. Dennett

1. Four Causes and Types of Explanations

2. Science and Darwinism

3. Locke and Hume