Advanced Metaphysics (Philosophy 663)
Fall 2009
 
Things of alleged importance
 
 Syllabus
 First assignment
 Second assignment (new deadline: 24 November)
 
Things of alleged interest
 
 The Monads, "Meinongian Babe"
 Okay, so it was apocryphal.
 
Schedule
 
 Week 0 24 September FIRST CLASS: The problem of empty names
 
 Parmenides, "On Nature."
 
David Braun, "Empty Names," Noûs 27.4 (Dec. 1993): 449-469 (esp. 454-455 and 466-467, notes 12-13).
 
 Week 1 29 September Meinong, "The Theory of Objects" (esp. 76-86)
 
Alexius Meinong, "Über Gegenstandstheorie," in Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie, ed. Alexius Meinong (Leibzig: Barth, 1904), 1-51; trans. by Isaac Levi, D.B. Terrell, and Roderick M. Chisholm as "The Theory of Objects" in Realism and the Background of Phenomenology (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1960), 76-117.
 
 1 October Meinong, "The Theory of Objects" (cont.); Russell's criticisms of Meinong
 
Bertrand Russell, "Three Letters to Meinong: A Translation," 1904-1907, trans. by Douglas Lackey in Russell 93.1 (Summer 1973): 15-18.
 
 Bertrand Russell, "On Denoting," Mind 14.56 (Oct. 1905): 479-493 (esp. 482-483).
 
Bertrand Russell, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1919), Chapter 16 (esp. 169-170).
 
 Week 2 6 October Russell's criticisms of Meinong (cont.)
 
Bertrand Russell, Review of Meinong, ed., Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie, Mind 14.56 (Oct. 1905): 530-538 (esp. 532-533).
 
Bertrand Russell, Review of Meinong, Über die Stellung der Gegenstandstheorie im System der Wissenschaften, Mind 16.63 (July 1907): 436-439 (esp. 439).
 
 8 October Russell's criticisms of Meinong (cont.)
 
Terence Parsons, "Referring to Nonexistent Objects," Theory and Decision 11.1 (March 1979): 95-110 (esp. 98-103).
 
Andrew Kenneth Jorgensen, "Meinong's Much Maligned Modal Moment," Grazer philosophische Studien 64.1 (Nov. 2002): 95-118.
 
 Week 3 13 October Russell's criticism of Meinong (cont.)
 
Bertrand Russell, The Principles of Mathematics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), Chapter 4 (esp. 43).
 
 15 October Russell's theory
 
 Russell, "On Denoting"
 
 Week 4 20 October Russell's theory (cont.)
 
 P.F. Strawson, "On Referring," Mind 59.235 (July 1950): 320-344.
 
 Bertrand Russell, "Mr. Strawson on Referring," Mind 66.263 (July 1957): 385-389.
 
Zoltán Gendler Szabó, "Descriptions and Uniqueness," Philosophical Studies 101.1 (Oct. 2000): 29-57.
 
Zoltán Gendler Szabó, "Definite Descriptions without Uniqueness: A Reply to Abbott," Philosophical Studies 114.3 (June 2003): 279-291.
 
 FIRST ASSIGNMENT HANDED OUT
 
 22 October Kripke's criticisms of Russell
 
 Saul Kripke, Reference and Existence: The John Locke Lectures for 1973, Lecture 1.
 
David Braun, "Katz on Names without Bearers," Philosophical Review 104.4 (Oct. 1995): 553-576 (esp. 557-561).
 
Scott Soames, "The Modal Argument: Wide Scope and Rigidified Descriptions," Noûs 32.1 (March 1998): 1-22 (esp. 13-16).
 
 Week 5 27 October Kripke's criticisms of Russell (cont.); Kripke on possibilia 
 
 Kripke, Reference and Existence, Lecture 2 
 
 29 October Kripke on possibilia (cont.)
 
 FIRST ASSIGNMENT DUE
 
 Week 6 3 November Kripke on possibilia (cont.)
 
 5 November Kripke on abstract objects 
 
 Kripke, Reference and Existence, Lectures 3 and 4 (esp. 52-56)
 
 Week 7 10 November Kripke on abstract objects (cont.)
 
 SECOND ASSIGNMENT HANDED OUT
 
 12 November Kripke on negative existentials; van Inwagen on abstract objects
 
 Kripke, Reference and Existence, Lecture 6 (esp. 98-109)
 
Peter van Inwagen, "Creatures of Fiction," American Philosophical Quarterly 14.4 (Oct. 1977): 299-308; reprinted in Peter van Inwagen, Ontology, Identity, and Modality: Essays in Metaphysics, Cambridge Studies in Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 37-57. 
 
 Week 8 17 November van Inwagen on abstract objects; van Inwagen on negative existentials
 
 19 November Everett's criticism of Meinong, Kripke, and van Inwagen
 
Anthony Everett, "Against Fictional Realism," Journal of Philosophy 102.12 (Dec. 2005): 624-649.
 
Benjamin Schnieder and Tatjana von Solodkoff, "In Defence of Fictional Realism," Philosophical Quarterly 59.234 (Jan. 2009): 138-149.
 
 Cathy Muller, "In Defense of Fictional Realism: A Reply to Everett" (ms.)
 
 Week 9 24 November Everett's criticism (cont.)
 
 SECOND ASSIGNMENT DUE (originally 19 November) 
 
 26 November THANKSGIVING—NO CLASS
 
 Week 10 1 December TBA
 
 3 December LAST CLASS
 
 Exam week 10 December THIRD ASSIGNMENT DUE