Ontology I

Code:

FILO030

Acronym:

ONT1

Instance: 2018/2019 - 1S

Active?	Yes
E-learning page:	http://moodle.up.pt/
Responsible unit:	Department of Philosophy
Course/CS Responsible:	Bachelor in Philosophy

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
FILO	33	FILO - Study Plan	3	-	6	4

Teaching language

Portuguese

Objectives

1. To understand the contemporary debate on the possibility of metaphysics constituting itself as a science: arguments against traditional metaphysics/ontology and new proposals by the authors studied.


2. To identify the main themes and problems of metaphysics/ontology.


3. To understand the relevance of the major moments of the historical debate on the philosophical issue of the constitution of metaphysical science.


4. To explain the specific concepts of the fundamental vocabulary of Ontology and its correlation with the ontological paradigms of each examined author.


5. To develop analytical and critical skills, applied to the main arguments of the works under consideration and to the questions they convey within the scope of metaphysics/ontology.

Learning outcomes and competences

 

1. To know the works and authors relevant for the history of the concept of metaphysics in Western philosophy.
2. To define ontology and metaphysics; to identify the main questions dealt with in these philosophical disciplines.
3. To identify and explain the different currents of contemporary metaphysics studied, the main arguments used against traditional metaphysics and the major theoretical underpinnings in the theories of each studied author.
4. To identify the different metaphysical paradigms in the history of philosophy and explain their major theoretical underpinnings on the issue of being and cognitive access to being. 
5. To distinguish the main arguments used by each studied author in order to sustain his position on metaphysics/ontology.

 

Working method

Presencial

Pre-requirements (prior knowledge) and co-requirements (common knowledge)

prerequirements : research tools and philosophical knowledge grasped in previous years of the 1st circle of the course of Philosophy

simultaneous knowledge - to read and analyse requiered bibliography (primary sources and studies)

Program

Part I  - Contemporary Metaphysics and Ontology: state of the art

• Pars Destruens:

Origin and theoretical underpinnings of anti-metaphysical and nihilist positions on traditional metaphysics. Heidegger: metaphysics and forgetfulness of the question on the meaning of being. Quine: «Plato’s tangled beard» and the metaphysics of possibility. Strawson: revisionista metaphysics. Metaphysical nihilists: Collingwood and Markus Gabriel – the science of puré being is an impossible science.

• Pars Construens:

Ways for the rehabilitation of metaphysics/ontology (analytical philosophy, hermeneutical phenomenology). Heidegger: fundamental ontology as existential phenomenology. Quine: ontological commitment Strawson: descriptive metaphysics; Peter van Inwagen – «Tarskian is the language of metaphysics »; Collingwood – metaphysics, science of absolute presuppositions. 

 

Part II – Metaphysics and ontology in the history of philosophy: itineraries of a concept

1. From Parmenides’ monism to the epistemic relativism of the Sophistic School.
   • The rupture with the Eleatic model. How being and non-being are mixed – deduction of the supreme genera.
2. Being is said in many ways:
   • Proposal of a science of being qua being.
   • Primacy of substance over the modes of existence.
   • Experience at the base of all science. Aristotelian theory of the knowledge of the material world and the first principles of the existent.
   • From sensible substance to the unmovable supreme being. The origin of metaphysics as ontotheology. The problem of the unity of the object of metaphysical science.
3. The constitution of metaphysics as a science of the necessary.
   • Avicenna and the problem of the unity of the object of metaphysical science.
   • God and causation: of what metaphysical science is not about and why.

3.3.  The object of metaphysical science: the existent and its concomitant notions.

4 Reception of the debate on the object of metaphysical science in the West. Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus: two antagonistic paradigms on metaphysics and the concept of the existente. Analogy and univocity.

5. Duns Scotus: metaphysics as transcendent science of the transcendentals.

5.1. Univocity of the concept of existent and metaphysics as cross-categorial science.

6. Conclusion: Towards the definition by J. Lorhard (1606): «metaphysics or ontology is the Science of the intelligible as intelligible, to the extent that it is known by man through the natural light of reason, without any concept of matter»

 

Mandatory literature

Aristóteles; Metafísica, Loyola, 2002
Avicena (ed. Marmura); The Metaphysics of the Healing, Brighma Yung Univ. Press, 2005
Collingwood, R. G.; An essay on metaphysics, OUP, 1998
Duns Scot (ed. Boulnois); Sur la Connaissance de Dieu et Univocité de l'étant, PUF, 1988
Markus Gabriel; Sentido y Existencia, Herder, 2017
Michael LOUX; Introdução à Metafísica, https://criticanarede.com/intrometafisica.html
Platão; Sofista, F.C.G., 2011
Parménides (ed. Néstor-Luis Cordero); Poema. Fragmentos y Tradición Textual, Ágora, 2007
Peter van Inwagen; Existence. Essays in Ontology, CUP, 2014
Quine W. V. 1908-2000; From a logical point of view
Strawson P. F.; Individuals. ISBN: 0-416-68310-X
Tomás de Aquino Santo 1224-1274; O^ente e a essência. ISBN: 978-972-36-1349-0

Complementary Bibliography

Adamson Peter 340; The^Cambridge companion to arabic philosophy. ISBN: 052152069X
Dimitri Gutas; Avicenna - Metaphysics
Kirk, G.S.; Raven, J.S.; Os filósofos pré-socráticos : história crítica com selecção de textos , Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1994
Marie Louise Gill; Method and Metaphysics in Plato's Sophist
Mesquita, A.P.; Aristóteles. Obras Completas. IIntrodução Geral, INCM-CFUL, 2005
NEF, Frédéric; Qu'est-ce que la métaphysique?, Gallimard, 2004
Peter van Inwagen; Megan Sullivan; https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysics/, SEP
Thomas Williams; Duns Scotus

Comments from the literature

Complementary bibliography will be introduced during the semester and will by available on Moddle.

Teaching methods and learning activities

Theoretic-practical lessons. Methodology based on reading and commentary of texts, expounding of philosophical questions and critical discussion of the arguments. 

All materials are in the UC’s Moodle page, which also serves as a vehicle of permanent communication with students, updating materials and implementing the teaching-learning process.

 

keywords

Humanities

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation without final exam

Assessment Components

Designation	Weight (%)
Participação presencial	10,00
Teste	90,00
Total:	100,00

Amount of time allocated to each course unit

Designation	Time (hours)
Estudo autónomo	110,00
Frequência das aulas	52,00
Trabalho de investigação
Total:	162,00

Eligibility for exams

75% over the total classes

Calculation formula of final grade

Two written tests (in the middle and at the end of the semester) and oral participation. Each test 50% (being there included the 10% concerning the active participation in classes). The second test can be replaced by a work of c. 8 pages to be delivered via moodle until November 30th and presented in class.

Examinations or Special Assignments

n/a

Internship work/project

n/a

Classification improvement

Students whishing to improve their mark should performe the final exam (weighting 100%).