Study Guide 2: Topics in Metaphysics
This study guide covers the final 7 weeks of the class.
Jeffrey Grupp, Department of Philosophy
Click here to go to the class syllabus
Reading relevant to this part of the class:
Jubien chapter 7 and 11 (more TBA)
Topics for Unit 2 of our class:
Greek Atomism
Greek Atomism
Religious issues to do with atomism
Blob Theory
Space
Indirect proof: Reductio ad absurdum
Space Atoms (and the argument for them)
Note: Some of these topics listed so far may appear in your notes at the very end of unit 1 of the class.
Conceptualism versus Greek atoms
Four approaches to Mind, including Dasein
Mind versus Atoms
Four approaches to Mind, including Dasein
Greek R-theory of Time
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Our experience of a reality of motion that is created out of a motionless ultimate reality |
The Big Bang, and religious issues surrounding it
Abstract Atomism
Levels of Reality (atomic==>QM==>chemical==>etc.)
Three approaches to mind and atomism:
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Mind is made of atoms (scientific position) |
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Mind = atoms |
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Mind and atoms have nothing to do wtih one another |
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Dasein |
Japanese Buddhism
Original Enlightenment
Tendai
Tendai Buddhism
AOF: Awakening of Faith
Fate and Determinism
Eternal Recurrence
Determinism
Indeterminism
Dasein with respect to determinism and indeterminism
Fatalism
Freedom
God, Cosmology, Big Bang, Causation, and Nihilism
The Big Bang, and religious issues surrounding it
Causation
Determinism and fatalism
Creation of the Universe
OPTIONAL reading assignment: Jubien chapter 7 + 11
The "First Cause" argument and its "proof" of God's existence
Faith and the Argument for God's non-existence with respect to faith
How is the Faith Argument possibly avoided?
Causation, Time, and Space
Presentism and Greek/Grupp R-theory of time
Experience of time
Rhythms and patterns in nature
Cause and effect (causation)
Memento
Film assignment: Memento
The points we discussed in Memento, and how Memento summarizes are class
Representationalism
[Read Litch chapter 1, Taylor chapters 1 and 2]
Representationalism
Self
Skepticism
The Transcendental Ego
Intentionality
The Transcendental Ego
Theories of No-self
Bundle view of self
Problems with the bundle view
Cyranaics
Worldmaking
Two interacting atom-sets: one maps, the other does not
Consequences to do with time and motion (R-theory of time)
Connectionism
Ant colony
Fractal mathematics and chaos theory
Indian Buddhism
Reading assignment: Yandell chapter 8 (109-116), Yandell chapter 12 (246-47).
No-self: the Buddhist bundle view of personhood
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Presentism |
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Unrelatedness of bundles states |
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Replacement of bundle states |
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Jean-Paul Sartre |
Momentary and Parmenidean arguments for the Buddhist position of no-self
Phenomenology
Definition of phenomenology [Note: Yandell writes: "A phenomenological description of an experience is a description that tells us how the things appears to a person who has it." (Philosophy of Religion, p. 215)]
Why study phenomenology?
Bergson's Equivalence of Inner and Outer phenomenology
more tba
In class movie clip from Waking Life
Hindu and Advaita Vedanta Metaphysics
Reading assignment: Yandell chapter 8 (pages 101-108), Yandell chapter 12 (241-242)
Sāksin (the disinterested witness, or eternal witness))
Brahman
In class movie clip from Lost Highway
Shankara
Ramanuja
Madva
Advaita Vedanta and reductionism and eliminativism (Yandell 107-109)
Propertyless Existence (Yandell p. 242)
Nihilism, Part 2
Nagarjuna and Presanga
Chinese Metaphysics
The Zen Doctrine of No-mind
Chi
[Note: Study Guide not updated past this point]
Exobiology and Aliens
Parallel universes
Solar system formation
Galaxy formation
Mars rock found in Antarctica
Comet plagues
Panspermia
Europa
Warp Drive
Parapsychology and the Paranormal
The five (traditionally conceived) human senses
PEAR (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research)
ESP
Animal intelligence and communication different than the five human senses
Jainism
Reading assignment: Yandell chapter 8 (109-116).
Jaina substance, momentariness, and attribute modification
Jaina self