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

• Threedimensionalism and Fourdimensionalism, 4-Category Ontology, 6-Category Ontology
• Emotions, Norms, Values
• Referent Tracking, Aboutness
• Genes, Species, Races; Biological categories (Metaphysics After Darwin)
• Commanding and Other Social Acts
• Granular Partitions and Vagueness
• How to Build an Imaging Ontology
• Ontology of Poker (2014)
• Definition of Disease
• Population, Species, Race
• Document Acts and the Ontology of Social Reality (2014)
• Mind, Language and Emotions (2014)
• Semantics of Biodiversity (2013)
• Massively Planned Social Agency (2013)
• Applied Ontology

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: Introduction to Analytical Metaphysics

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

February 9: 3-dimensionalism and 4-dimensionalism

• Eddy Zemach
• E. J. Lowe
• Basic Formal Ontology

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