Metaphysics PY3075
Metaphysics is the study of the ultimate nature of reality. It attempts to assess answers to this fundamental question: What exists or is real?
Pre-requisites / co-requisites
Logic (PY1070) must be taken at the same time or already have been passed.
Topics covered
Specific metaphysical questions are so various and important that discussion of some of them has come to form separate branches of philosophy, for example Philosophy of mind and Philosophy of religion, both of which are in the list of optional courses. However, the central and more general questions of existence and reality remain part of this core courses, and give rise to more specific ones that are also studied, namely: What is time? Are particulars more basic than events? Do human beings have free will? What is causality? Are there universals? Does the world exist independently of our knowledge of it?
Assessment
One two- hour unseen written examination.