Advance Metaphysics

1. Define and differentiate key concepts in metaphysics.
2. Analyze and compare different metaphysical systems.
3. Evaluate arguments related to the problem of being.
4. Critically assess the concepts of freewill and determinism.
5. Understand theories of time and space across different cosmologies.

13 weeks, about 32 hours in total. Yours will differ.

1. Week 1Module 1: Metaphysics: Nature, Branches and Other Disciplines

   • Unit 1: Meaning, Conceptual and Theoretical Definition, Branches and Nature · 2 hours

     Define metaphysics conceptually and theoretically.. Distinguish metaphysics from occultism.. Identify the branches of metaphysics and their subject matter..

2. Week 2Module 1: Metaphysics: Nature, Branches and Other Disciplines

   • Unit 2: General Issues and Problems in Metaphysics · 2 hours

     Identify general issues and problems in metaphysics.. Discuss the nature of existence, identity, and modality.. Explore the relationship between reality and appearance..

3. Week 3Module 1: Metaphysics: Nature, Branches and Other Disciplines

   • Unit 3: The Futility of Eliminating Metaphysics · 2 hours

     Explain Comte's arguments against metaphysics.. Discuss Hume's critique of metaphysics.. Analyze the logical positivists' attempt to eliminate metaphysics..

4. Week 4Module 1: Metaphysics: Nature, Branches and Other Disciplines

   • Unit 4: The Relevance of Metaphysics · 2 hours

     Discuss the relevance of metaphysics to philosophy and other disciplines.. Examine the role of metaphysics in addressing contemporary problems.. Explain how metaphysics can inform our understanding of reality..

5. Week 5Module 2: Systems of Metaphysics

   • Unit 1: Realism · 2 hours

     Explain realism as a metaphysical system.. Discuss the historical development of realism.. Identify the various types of realism and their proponents..

6. Week 6Module 2: Systems of Metaphysics

   • Unit 2: Idealism · 2 hours

     Define the basic tenets of idealism.. State the various strands of idealism.. Trace the historical development of idealism..

7. Week 7Module 2: Systems of Metaphysics

   • Unit 3: Nominalism · 2 hours

     Understand the basic ideas at the center of nominalism.. Appreciate the historical development of nominalism.. Know the various forms that nominalism has taken..

8. Week 8Module 2: Systems of Metaphysics

   • Unit 4: The Problem of Universals · 2 hours

     Appreciate the historical development of universalism.. Explain the various trends that are characteristic of systems in metaphysics.. State how the problem of universals presents itself as a philosophical problem..

9. Week 9Module 2: Systems of Metaphysics

   • Unit 5: The Concepts of Nature, Reality and Thought · 2 hours

     Highlight what the various scholars through history think and say of nature, reality and the possibility of thought.. Help students have an overview of the thinking of philosophical forebears on these themes.. Stimulate in students the interest to rethink these ideas in their own ways at the same time paying critical attention to the history of these discourses..

10. Week 10Module 3: Problems of Being

    • Unit 1: Historical Exploration of the Question of Being · 2 hours

      Understand the centrality of being in metaphysics.. Facilitate an understanding of what is being.. Facilitate an understanding of what is non-being.. Show the historical character of the discourse on being as a central theme in metaphysics..

11. Week 11Module 3: Problems of Being

    • Unit 2: The God Question in Metaphysics · 2 hours

      Understand the ubiquitous nature of the God question in metaphysics.. Appreciate the strength and weaknesses of the various arguments for and against God's existence.. Estimate the theoretical as well as practical implications of these discourses..

    • Unit 3: A Short Discourse on Human Nature · 2 hours

      Understand what human is.. Appreciate the development of the concept in the history of metaphysics.. Outline some defining features of human nature as peculiarly different from the other aspects of nature..

12. Week 12Module 3: Problems of Being

    • Unit 4: The Mind-Body Problem(Some Theories/Debates) · 2 hours

      Understand the main thrust of the problem of mind and body.. Have an overview of the historical perspective to efforts in resolving it.. Stimulate reflections on the various theories there are in an effort to resolve the problem of mind and body drawing on inspirations of earlier thinkers..

    • Unit 5: Notion of Substance (Monism vs Pluralism) · 2 hours

      Underpin what the notion of substance connotes.. Know the history of the debates surrounding the notion of substance.. Ascertain the various dimensions of what the notion means in metaphysics.

13. Week 13Module 5: Further Reflections on Some Other Problems of Metaphysics

    • Unit 3: Determinism in African Metaphysics · 2 hours

      Understand how Africans conceive determinism.. Understand how African metaphysics inform the idea of moral agency.. Understand the African idea of predestination..

    • Unit 1: Participation · 2 hours

      Discuss what the term connotes/means. Discuss the idea of participation in philosophy. State the philosophical problems the characterization provokes..