180128 VO-L Introduction to Analytic Metaphysics (2020S)

Aims: These "lectures with required reading" are intended to introduce students to metaphysics and familiarize them with its central questions from a historical and systematic perspective. In the course of the semester, students will become acquainted with essential historical texts (from Anaxagoras, Plato and Aristotle to Avicenna/Ibn Sina and Al-Biruni, and from Locke, Newton, and Leibniz to Einstein), as well as current debates through a selection of contemporary analytic papers.

Content: In this lecture we will explore the question of what the basic building blocks of the world are, which underlie all other philosophical questions. For example, we will discuss what objects are and how they relate to their properties; what sort of properties there are; what it is for something to undergo a change; what identity is; what is necessary, what is contingent, what is possible and what is impossible. In this context, we will also look into the distinction between realism and anti-realism.

Metaphysical explanations usually start from something taken as prime, i.e. as the itself not analyzed basis of all further metaphysical explanations. We will look at what ontological entities metaphysicians today take as prime and will discuss the respective merits and difficulties of these options. In this context we will discuss issues concerning ontological commitment, reduction and grounding. The literature on these topics includes historical texts (see above) as well as work by contemporary philosophers including Allen, Armstrong, Ayers, Brewer, Besson as well as Haslanger, Lewis, Magidor, and Thomson, Vetter, Xu, Yablo.

The first question we will have to tackle, however, is why analytic metaphysics even exists - after all, the Vienna Circle vehemently rejected metaphysics. This question leads us deep into meta-metaphysics. We will read the manifesto of the Vienna Circle and look at recent literature by Belleri, Bennett, Russell and Sider.

Method: There will be required reading which students are expected to have done ahead of each lecture; further reading will also be recommended for each topic. In the lecture, the respective issue(s) will be discussed jointly, we will then look at the most important philosophical views on them and talk about the respective required reading.

**Update**
During the special measures due to the COVID-19 crisis, instruction takes place via Moodle.