Metaphysics is the study of the nature of existence. This includes a wide-range of questions, such as:

• Why is there something rather than nothing?
• Is the past just as real as the present?
• Is the mind a part of the body or is it something else?
• Do we have free will?
• What does it mean for something to be possible?
• What is truth?

Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge and justified belief. Epistemology is fundamentally about how we come to understand the world. It includes such questions as:

• What is the difference between knowledge and true opinion?
• How do we know that what we perceive is not just a part of a dream or an illusion?
• How can we know that our senses are reliable without using our senses to determine that?
• How do we acquire moral knowledge?
• Is it rational to hold a belief in the face of disagreement?
• Can it be rational to believe without sufficient evidence?

Metaphysics

• Riddles of Existence by Earl Conee and Theodore Sider - A range of different topics.
  • Available as e-book from Collier HERE.
• Mind in a Physical World by Jaegwon Kim - The nature of mind.
  • Available as e-book from Collier HERE.
• A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality by John Perry - Questions of what makes you the same person throughout time and change.
• Elbow Room by Daniel Dennet - Free will.
  • Collier call number: BJ1461 .D426 1984
• Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein - The nature of truth and meaningfulness.
  • Collier call number: BC135 .W831 1981

Epistemology

• Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes - The locus classicus of modern epistemology.
  • Collier call number: B 1853 .E5 M67 2008
• Theory of Knowledge by Roderick Chisholm - A survey of contemporary topics (circa 1980) in epistemology.
• Knowledge and Certainty by Normal Malcolm - A collection of essays on the topic of knowledge and its relationship to language.
• In Defense of Pure Reason by Laurence BonJour - A defense of the possibility of knowledge by reason alone.
• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn - A heterodox approach to the relationship between science and knowledge.
  • Collier call number:  Q175 .K95 1970a
    

• PHL 201. Introduction to Philosophy
• PHL 303. Philosophy of Religion
• PHL 331. History of Western Philosophy I
• PHL 332. History of Western Philosophy II
• PHL 340. Metaphysics
• PHL 484. Philosophical Borderlands of Science and Religion
• PHL 490. Special Topics
• PHL 499. Independent Study