Analytical Metaphysics

Department of Philosophy: PHI 531. Registration number [1]

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

Room: 141 Park Hall, UB North Campus

Instructor: Barry Smith

Office hours: By appointment via email at [2]

The Course

Topics

• Universals and Particulars
• Three-Dimensionalism and Four-Dimensionalism
• Qualities, Roles and Dispositions
• Truth, Reference and Aboutness
• Mind and Language
• Commanding and Other Social Acts
• Emotions, Norms, Values
• Mind and Language
• Actions, Intentions, Plans
• Document Acts and the Ontology of Social Reality (2014)
• Laws and Obligations
• Massively Planned Social Agency
• Science
• Populations, Species, and Other Biological Categories
• Disease
• Wars and Warfighting

Reading:

Roman Ingarden, The Literary Work of Art. An Investigation on the Borderlines of Ontology, Logic, and Theory of Language

E. J. Lowe, The Four Category Ontology

R. Arp, B. Smith, A. D. Spear, Building Ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology

February 2: Analytical Metaphysics: Introduction and Historical Background

• Aristotle
• Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein
• Husserl and the Polish School
• Contemporary Analytical Metaphysics
• Universals and Particulars

February 9: Things and Processes; Parts and Wholes

• Eddy Zemach
• 3-Dimensionalism and 4-Dimensionalism
• E. J. Lowe
• Basic Formal Ontology
• Pieces of a Theory

February 16 Qualities, Roles and Dispositions and Functions

• Chapter 5

February 23: Use of Ontologies in Tracking Systems: Truth, Reference and Aboutness

• About Aboutness

March 1: Mind and Language

• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vw3R5UCcDI

Grading and Related Policies and Services

All students will be required to take an active part in class discussions throughout the semester. In addition they will be required to design and complete an ontology project, including written description, and brief presentation of the project in class. Students enrolled in the practical segment will be required to create a Protégé file to accompany their ontology project, and also to complete quizzes designed to gauge developing competence in the use of the Protégé Ontology Editor and SPARQL query language.

For 3 credit hour students, your grade will be determined in five equal portions deriving from:

1. class participation (1.5% per class attended),

2. results of two quizzes relating to the lab portion of the course

3. written description of ontology project (3000 words; deadline December 2),

4. Protégé ontology file (deadline November 25),

5. class presentation.

For 2 credit hour students, your grade is determined as follows:

1. class participation (1.5% per class attended),

2. written description of ontology project (4000 words; deadline December 2) (50%),

3. class presentation (30%).

For policy regarding incompletes see here

For academic integrity policy see here

For accessibility services see here