PHIL 31.08 Puzzles of the Material World
The world around us seems to be populated with familiar objects of all sorts: plants and animals, tables and chairs, rivers and mountains. Yet a range of puzzles and paradoxes have been raised to do with the vagueness of ordinary objects, their relationship to the matter that makes them up, and the apparent rivalry between scientific and everyday descriptions of the world. Might ordinary objects be an illusion? What does the material world truly contain? Can we save our common-sense view of the world?
Prerequisite
One Philosophy course, or permission of the instructor.