Metaphysics Final Exam Study Guide

This list does not cover all of the material we’ve discussed in class, but it does cover most of the most important views and arguments. So it should be useful as a study guide.

B series vs. A series.

McTaggart's argument against the existence of time.

Prior's argument that only the present is real.

Understanding tenses as indexicals.

Tenseless statements vs. tensed statements.

Broad’s argument for a growing block universe

Hinckfuss's analogy of 'noris' and 'was'.

Markosian’s defense of the claim that time passes

Lewis's argument that you can/cannot kill your younger self.

Sider's argument that the impossibility of killing your younger self does not pose a threat to free will, does not create implausible series of coincidences, etc.

Mereological Essentialism and the associated idea that names refer to different things at different times

Temporal Parts Theory (time slices, time worms, how to understand tensed predications)

Wiggins’ argument in favor of coincidence

Burke’s dominant kinds account that avoids coincidence

Heller’s argument for four-dimensionalism

What we mean by personal identity and the three competing views: (physical, psychological, and soul view)

Williams’s argument against the psychological account

Parfit’s Argument that ‘Identity is not What Matters’

Lewis’s Argument that identity is what matters (two people coincide in cases of fission)

Ehring’s argument that one person exists at two different places at once in cases of fission

Sider’s argument that we are momentary stages