PHL 5009 Metaphysical Continuations
This course is about ontology, the study of "being". It boldly states that everything has being. This being is so abstruse that it tells us nothing else about reality. But inorganic and organic nature and various species, including humans, appear as distinct and different existents from the non-appearing "being" and (meta -- above or beyond the physical) ideas, values and eternal entities. The intense conflicts between being and nothingness, beings and existents, universals and particulars, necessary and contingent, essential lawfulness or complete randomness are variations of the original problem of the one and the many that has inspired theologies, philosophies and cultures throughout the Western tradition. For Aristotle, e.g., man is the rational animal, but the tortuous career of reason dramatically oscillates between idealism, realism and nihilism. In this class we will embark on a comparison of the great philosophic definitions of being via readings from Descartes, Hume, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, Jaspers, Wittgenstein and Derrida.