Cornell University

PHIL 364: Metaphysics
Spring 2005

Instructor
Prof. Delia Graff
Email: d e l i a . g r a f f @ c o r n e l l . e d u
Office: 228 Goldwin Smith Hall
Office Hours: TBA.

Course Info
Time: Tuesday - Thursday 2:55 - 4:10
Room: 112, Rockefeller Hall
 Course Description
The focus of the course this semester will be identity at a time and identity over time. The course will be broken down into two topics: (i) artifact identity, and (ii) personal identity.

I can destroy a bronze statue by melting it, without destroying the bronze it is made of. Does this mean that the statue and the bronze are different objects, even though they may at a time occupy the same region of space? If while at sea, we gradually replace all the parts of our ship, will we be on the same ship at the end of the repairs that we were on at the beginning? What sorts of changes could a person undergo, and still be the same person? We will examine these and other puzzles in an effort to understand the relation of a thing to its parts and to the matter that constitutes it, as well as to explore some important differences between artifacts and persons. Readings will be primarily from contemporary analytic philosophers, including Lewis, Parfit, Shoemaker, Van Inwagen and Williams. We will look at historical sources as well.

Announcements



Required Texts:

  1. Material Constitution, Michael Rea, editor.
  2. Personal Identity, John Perry, editor

These are available for purchase at the Campus Store.

Course Requirements

Reading Assignments

This is a dynamic list, to be revised (e.g. with dates for reading assignments) over the semester. Check back here for updates, remembering to refresh this page in your browser.

Reading that are not in one of the required texts for the course are marked with an asterisk and will be made available in class.

  1. (1968) David Wiggins: "On Being in the Same Place at the Same Time"
    (Read for 1 FEB 05)
  2. (1982) Frederick C. Doepke: "Spatially Coinciding Objects"
    (Read for 1 FEB 05)
  3. (1975) Allan Gibbard: "Contingent Identity"
    (Read (and re-read) for 8 FEB 05)
  4. (1976) Roderick Chisolm: "Identity through Time"
    (Read for 17 FEB 05)
  5. (1979) Peter Unger: "I do not Exist"
    (Read for 22 FEB 05)
  6. (1980) Peter Geach: selections from Reference and Generality (Rea)
    (Read for 8 March 05)
  7. (1971) Hugh Chandler: "Constitutivity and Identity" (Rea)
    (Skim for 8 March 05)
  8. (1981) Peter van Inwagen "The Doctrine of Arbitrary Undetached Parts"
    (Read for 10 March 05)
  9. (1983) Judith Jarvis Thomson: "Parthood and Identity across Time"
    (Finish reading for 31 March 05)
  10. (1986)* David Lewis: selction from On the Plurality of Worlds (on the problem of temporary intrinsics)
    Handed out in class.
  11. (1984) Mark Heller: "Temporal Parts of Four-Dimensional Objects"
    (Read for 31 March 05)


  12. (1690) Locke "Of Identity and Diversity" (from *Essay Concerning Human Understanding*)
    Read for 7 APR 05
  13. (1736) Joseph Butler: "Of Personal Identity"
    Read for 7 APR 05
  14. (1785) Thomas Reid: "Of Identity"
    Read for 7 APR 05
  15. (1785) Thomas Reid: "Of Mr. Locke's Account of Our Personal Identity"
    Read for 7 APR 05
  16. (1941) Grice: "Personal Identity"
    Read for 19 APR 05
  17. (1975) John Perry: "Personal Identity, Memory, and the Problem of Circularity"
    Read for 21 APR 05
  18. (1959) Sydney Shoemaker: "Personal Identity and Memory"
    Read for 26 APR 05
  19. (1970) Bernard Williams: "The Self and the Future"
    Read for 03 MAY 05
  20. (1971) Derek Parfit: "Personal Identity"
    Read for 03 MAY 05

Homework Assignments

When doing your homework assignments, you might find these sites helpful:
My friend Jim Pryor's Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper and Philosophical Terms and Methods.

You may also wish to look at my list of philosophy links on the web, which has (among other things) some useful pointers to other philosophy links sites.

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This page created by Delia Graff
URL: http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/research/graff/phil364/spring05.html
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