Topics in Metaphysics

Events, Tropes, Causation. Life –and much else – consists of events, simultaneous and successive. Why events happen and how they are related is the stuff of scientific explanation, through which runs a common theme: events happen because other events have happened. This theme is causation, Mackie’s “cement of the universe”, and the motor of persistence. Events happen to things: create and destroy them, and change their properties and the relations between them, which as individuals, are tropes. How are events and tropes related? Are all events tropes? Are all tropes events? These questions take us to the heart of fundamental ontology.

Students will be evaluated based on a final research paper.