Build-Your-Own: Metaphysics (PHIL30055)

Build-Your-Own: Metaphysics will guide students through developing their own metaphysical view via an examination of the various ingredients of metaphysical views and of how different cultures put these ingredients together to create a metaphysical view.  

The first few weeks will be spent examining the various ingredients that go into building a metaphysical system. Readings will vary slightly depending on student interest, but will include topics such as physical objects, events, causation, parts and wholes, properties, persistence over time, possibility, etc. The middle weeks will be spent examining how different cultures put these ingredients together to come up with differing metaphysical systems. Readings will vary slightly depending on student interest, but will include Indigenous philosophy (e.g., Australian, African, native American), traditional Western philosophy (e.g., Kant, Lewis), and religious worldviews (e.g., Shinto, Islamic, Buddhist, Christian).

The final weeks will be spent guiding students to make explicit the metaphysical systems that govern their own lives via reflection on the ingredients of metaphysics and the ways various cultures put these ingredients together. There will be space for students to incorporate readings from their own interests and to design a final project which reflects the role philosophy plays in both their daily lives and their reflective thinking.