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Instructor: Mark Smith

The special focus of this term’s material will be on the metaphysics of the human person. Does the concept “person” pick out a natural kind having a distinctive essence? Or does it just pick out a specific sort of animal? Is there such a thing as the self, which accounts for enduring personal identity, or is the self an illusion? Is there such a phenomenon as free will, or is that perhaps an illusion also? These and other metaphysical questions that have specifically to do with human life and our self-conception will be broached, largely through contemporary work in metaphysics. Among others, we will read work by Sally Haslanger, Christine Korsgaard, Paul Snowdon, Galen Strawson, and Harry Frankfurt.