Analytic Metaphysics

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The Course

This course consists in an overview of central themes in analytic metaphysics viewed from a broadly realist perspective. We begin with a historical overview of analytic metaphysics and a discussion of general categories such as universals, particulars, processes, dispositions and functions. We then extend these general categories to specific areas such as social reality, documents and document acts, disease, money, and war. The course will be of interest not only to philosophers but also to those interested in ontological applications.

Department of Philosophy: Special Topics PHI 598. Registration number: 24232

Time: Tuesdays, 1-3:50pm, Spring 2016

Room: 141 Park Hall, UB North Campus

Instructor: Barry Smith

Office hours: Tuesdays, 12:15-1pm and by appointment via email to [1]

Recommended background reading

R. Arp, B. Smith, A. D. Spear, Building Ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology
John R. Searle, Making the Social World
E. J. Lowe, The Four Category Ontology
Roman Ingarden, The Literary Work of Art. An Investigation on the Borderlines of Ontology, Logic, and Theory of Language

Schedule

February 2: Analytic Metaphysics: Introduction and Historical Background

Aristotle

What's Wrong with Contemporary Philosophy?
Austrian Philosophy
Objects and Their Environments: From Aristotle to Ecological Ontology
Pieces of a Theory
Slides
Video

February 9: Ontology of Deontic Entities

Building Ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology, Chapter 5
Massively Planned Social Agency
Document Acts and the Ontology of Social Reality
John Searle: From Speech Acts to Social Reality
Slides Contents
Video

February 16: Ontology of Deontic Entities (continued)

Massively Planned Social Agency
Slides
Video
See also materials here

February 23: Ontological Realism

Individuals, Universals and Collections
Fiat Objects
Endurantist and Perdurantist Accounts of Persistence
Slides
Video

March 1: Material Entities and Process Profiles

Classifying Processes: An Essay in Applied Ontology
On Classifying Material Entities in Basic Formal Ontology
Slides
Video

March 8: Mind, Language, Intentionality, Emotions, Truth, and Aboutness

About Aboutness
Information Artifact Ontology
Slides
Video 1
Video 2: About Aboutness

March 22: Document Acts

Document Acts
What is a Recipe?
Slides
Video

March 29: Money

The Construction of Social Reality
Money and Fictions
Toward a Science of Emerging Media
Slides
Video

April 5: The Ontology of Classification

The Weight of the Baby
Functions, Function Concepts, and Scales
Slides
Video

April 12: Organisms and Environments

Aristotle's Theory of Definition
On Place and Space: The Ontology of the Eruv
Slides
Video

April 19: Terrorism, Wars and Warfighting

Defining Terrorism
An Ontological Framework for Understanding the Terror-Crime Nexus
Military Ontology
Slides

April 26: Presentations of Student Projects 1

1:00pm John Beverley: Basic Formal Ontology

1:25pm J. Neil Otte: Game Theory Ontology

1:50pm Kejin Cui: Ontology and Spatial Relations Between Land Types

2:15pm Brian Donohue: Deontic Ontology Slides

2:40pm Daniel Shaffer: Law

3:05pm Alec Sculley: Tolerable Delinquency

May 3: Presentations of Student Projects 2

1:00pm Jeon-Young Kang: Infectious Disease

1:25pm Fumiaki Toyoshima: Schizophrenia

1:50pm Carter Benson and Francesco Franda: Terrorism

2:40pm Uriah Burke: Film

3:05pm Ben Lawrence: Drawing

Grading and Related Policies and Services

All students will be required to take an active part in class discussions throughout the semester and to prepare a paper on some relevant topic. The paper should be submitted in a draft version on or before March 29, and in final form on or before May 3. A powerpoint version will be presented in class in one or other of the two closing sessions .

Your grade will be determined in three equal portions deriving from:

1. class participation (2.5% per class attended)
2. paper (3000 words; deadline for draft: March 29; deadline for final version: May 3)
3. class presentation (graded according to quality of powerpoint slides, quality of delivery, and quality of response to questions)

For policy regarding incompletes see here

For academic integrity policy see here

For accessibility services see here