180028 PS Properties (2024W)

AIMS: This seminar aims to introduce students to one of the most exciting philosophical topics. They will become familiar with important historical and contemporary questions and debates about properties and be able to relate them to other areas of philosophy.

A second aim of this seminar is to practise philosophical writing. Based on the seminar content, we will discuss how to find and develop a topic and how to structure and write philosophical texts.

CONTENT: Properties play an essential role in many areas of philosophy. Metaethics, for example, deals with the question of whether moral properties exist independently of human conventions, judgements or emotions. The philosophy of science, for instance, investigates whether properties are theory-dependent or theory-independent. The philosophy of mathematics discusses whether abstract objects, properties or structures shoul be taken as primary in its explanations. Epistemology discusses properties in connection with the objects of knowledge. Logic deals with modal properties, and in the philosophy of language, properties can serve as the truth-makers of predicates. But what exactly are properties and what sorts of properties are there?

In this seminar we will first look at the ontology of properties. Is a property itself a kind of object or does it only exist in other objects? Do properties exist individuated in the things that possess them, are they objective similarities between things, or are they ontologically dependent on observers, concepts or judgements? Are they maybe simply attributions we make? What does it mean, ontologically speaking, to say that several things possess the same property: do they actually share it, do they have a commonality, or do they have similar abilities or powers?

Then we will look at various distinctions made in philosophy regarding properties. For example, we distinguish between essential and accidental, sortal and characterising, intrinsic and extrinsic, primary and secondary, sparse and abundant, determinable and determinate, dispositional and categorical, one-, two- and multi-place properties. We discuss the purposes of these distinctions and the merits and disadvantages of different approaches to them.

METHOD: On each topic, students will prepare one text each in small groups and then present them in the seminar. There will be texts with divergent viewpoints for each of the topics, which we will compare in the seminar and discuss their pros and cons. Special attention will be given to the application of the respective points of view in other areas of philosophy. Students who do not present a text on a topic will prepare an essay plan for the relevant unit.