| Assignment | Date Due | Percentage |
| First essay | February 22 | 30% |
| Second essay | March 24 | 20% |
| Third essay | April 11 | 20% |
| Fourth essay | May 9 | 30% |
| Total | 100% |
| Assignment | Date Due | Percentage |
| Universals and particulars | February 25 | 25% |
| Possible worlds | March 24 | 25% |
| Time | April 9 | 25% |
| Persistence through time or Realism/Anti-realism | May 9 | 25% |
| Total | 100% |
| Date | Topics and reading |
| Jan 23 | Overview of course and brief history of metaphysics |
| 25 | Topics in Aristotle's Metaphysics |
| 28 | An overview of universals |
| 30 | Bertrand Russell "The world of universals" |
| Feb 1 | H. H. Price, "Universals and resemblances" |
| 4 | W. V. O. Quine, "On what there is" |
| 6 | D. C. Williams, "The elements of being" |
| 8 | David Armstrong, "Universals as attributes" |
| 11 | An overview on particulars |
| 13 | Max Black, "The identity of indiscernibles" |
| 15 | Edwin B. Allaire, "Bare particulars" |
| 18 | James Van Cleve, "Three versions of the bundle theory" |
| 20 | Albert Casullo, "A fourth version of the bundle theory" |
| 22 | Indian philosophers on universals
and particulars First undergraduate essay due |
| 25 | A historical overview of possible-world semantics |
| 27 | David Lewis, "Possible worlds" |
| 29 | Alvin Plantinga, "Actualism and possible worlds" |
| 3 | Plantinga |
| 5 | David Lewis, "Counterparts or double lives?" (1 & 2) |
| 7 | Lewis (3) |
| 10 | Kripke, "Identity and necessity" |
| 12 | Kripke |
| 14 | Kripke |
| 24 | An overview of the issues of time
(and space) Second undergraduate essay due |
| 26 | J. M. E. McTaggart, "Time" |
| 28 | C. D. Broad, "Ostensible temporality" |
| 31 | Richard Taylor, "Time and eternity" |
| Apr 2 | A. N. Prior, "The notion of the present" |
| 4 | J. J. C. Smart, "The space-time world" |
| 7 | D. H. Mellor, "The need for tense" |
| 9 | Mark Heller, "Temporal parts of four-dimensional objects" (1-4) |
| 11 | Heller, (4-8) Third undergraduate essay due |
| 14 | Trenton Merricks, "Endurance and indiscernibility" (I-II) |
| 16 | Merricks, (III-VIII) |
| 18 | Derek Parfit, "Personal identity" |
| 21 | Parfit |
| 23 | David Lewis, "Survival and identity" |
| 25 | Lewis |
| 28 | Richard Swinburne, "Personal identity: the dualist theory" |
| 30 | Swinburne |
| May 2 | Michael Dummett, "Realism" |
| 5 | W. V. Quine, "Ontological relativity" |
| 7 | Hilary Putnam, "A problem about reference" |
| 9 | Peter Van Inwagen, "Objectivity" Fourth essay due |