Postgraduate Course: Metaphysics MSc (PHIL11156)
Course Outline
| School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences | 
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences | 
 
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) | 
Availability | Not available to visiting students | 
 
| SCQF Credits | 20 | 
ECTS Credits | 10 | 
 
 
| Summary | This course is an advanced introduction to metaphysics. | 
 
| Course description | 
    
    Metaphysics is the study of the most basic and general features of reality. This course will focus on a range of traditional and contemporary problems in metaphysics. Specific topics to be discussed may include: universals and particulars; objects, properties and events; composition and constitution; the nature of necessity and possibility; fundamentality; ontological dependence; realism and anti-realism about truth; conceptual relativity; and the question 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' 
 
Shared with undergraduate course Metaphysics PHIL10155. 
 
For courses co-taught with undergraduate students and with no remaining undergraduate spaces left, a maximum of 8 MSc students can join the course. Priority will be given to MSc students who wish to take the course for credit on a first come first served basis after matriculation.
    
    
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites | 
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Co-requisites |  | 
 
| Prohibited Combinations |  | 
Other requirements |  None | 
 
 
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |   
Learning Outcomes 
    On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
    
        - demonstrate core skills in philosophy, including the ability to interpret and engage with philosophical texts, to evaluate arguments, and to develop one's own critical ideas in response.
 - show an understanding of some of the central problems in metaphysics and of leading approaches to resolving them.
 - analyse these problems and the strengths and weakness of various approaches made to resolving them.
 
     
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Reading List 
| Available on Learn. |   
 
Additional Information
| Course URL | 
Please see Learn | 
 
| Graduate Attributes and Skills | 
Textual analysis. 
Critical interpretation. 
Developing an argument. 
Written communication. 
Oral debate. 
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| Keywords | metaphysics,modality,ontology,fundamentality | 
 
 
Contacts 
| Course organiser | Dr Nick Treanor 
Tel: (0131 6)51 3085 
Email: nick.treanor@ed.ac.uk | 
Course secretary | Ms Becky Verdon 
Tel: (0131 6)51 5002 
Email: Rebecca.Verdon@ed.ac.uk | 
   
 
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