Thursday, 12-14, B111

16 december: The truthmaking argument for the existence of properties

To read:

• Devitt, Michael, 1980. "'Ostrich Nominalism' or 'Mirage Realism'". Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 61: 433-439 (in Mellor / Oliver 1999)
• Armstrong, David M., 1980. "Against 'Ostrich' Nominalism: A Reply to Michael Devitt", Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 61: 440-449. (in Mellor / Oliver 1999)

23 december: Leibniz's Law and the Puzzles of Coincidence

To read:

• Wasserman, 2009. "Material Constitution"

Bits and pieces

• Buy David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds, Oxford: Blackwell, 1986. It's indispensible reading, for almost everything in metaphysics, and arguably the most important work of 20th century philosophy.
• check out the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - most of the articles are excellent!
• check out the Philosophy Compass - most of the articles in the metapyhsics section are quite good.
• check out the Metaphysics and Epistemology section of PhilPapers - most of the literature is there.
• Ted Sider's bibliographies on modality, persistence, abstract entities and metaontology.