Students taking this paper will be expected to:

1. Acquire a more thorough knowledge of some of the main metaphysical claims and arguments in philosophy

2. Acquire a more thorough and detailed knowledge of some of the main claims and arguments in the philosophy of mind

3. Acquire an understanding of how these claims and arguments relate to one another.

4. Engage in close criticism with the claims and arguments studied.
5. Develop their own powers of philosophical analysis and argument through study of metaphysics and the philosophy of mind.

6. Develop their ability to think independently about philosophical problems and arguments.

7. Understand and engage critically with the principal metaphysical theses of the set text.

Issues to be explored will include: Nature, subject matter and limits of Metaphysics
Controversies surrounding the validity of metaphysical knowledge – Positivism, Neo-positivism and Renaissance of Metaphysics; Aristotle and Metaphysics ; Collingwood and Metaphysics; McTarggart and Twentieth Century Metaphysics; The future of Metaphysics; Variations in the Themes of Metaphysics – Foundations of the various Intellectual Disciplines. The will to construct Metaphysical Theories, the Value of Metaphysics; Quantum Mechanics, Relativity and Post-relativity; Emerging Metaphysics and Vanishing Epistemologies; Realism and Idealism; Particulars and Universals; Causation, Time and Space; Other Minds and Other Worlds. The concepts of Ultimate Reality, Being and Non-being. Paradoxes of being and nothingness.

Course will be administered by a combination of Seminars and Lectures.

One In-Course Essay minimum of 3,500 to 4000 words: 40%.
Final Examination of Two Hours 60%