Qualitativism: Objects, Structure, and Ontology

Catalog description

This seminar will focus on various "qualitativist" doctrines, all of which hold that reality contains no facts about particular objects. Topics we're likely to discuss include: (i) Bundle theories of objects, which in various ways privilege properties over objects as constituents of reality, (ii) Objections to bundle theories from the possibility of reality exhibiting certain symmetries, (iii) Various contemporary versions of qualitativism, which are meant to improve on traditional bundle theories, (iv) The interaction between all of these doctrines and debates in the metaphysics of modality over "haecceitism," the doctrine that some metaphysical possibilities differ only over facts about particular objects, (v) The connections between these doctrines and complaints about "bare particulars," as well as debates over the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, (vi) The various theoretical virtues that are meant to motivate qualitativism, and whether these motivations succeed, and (vii) The connections between qualitativism and certain revisionary ontological doctrines, all of which hold that there are far fewer objects than we ordinarily take there to be. Depending on students' interests, we might also look at connections between these issues in metaphysics and related debates in the philosophy of science and physics, including: (i) The nature and structure of space and time, (ii) The nature of symmetries in physical theories, and (iii) Different disambiguations of the elusive doctrine of "structuralism." Our focus will be on contemporary work. Those enrolling in the seminar should be comfortable with the basics of first-order logic. This is a graduate seminar. 2 unit option for Philosophy PhD students beyond the second year only. May be repeated for credit.