Metaphysics and the Nature of Man

FAIN: FB-12668-74

Roderick M. Chisholm
Brown University (Providence, RI 02912-9100)

Seminar will be concerned with certain traditional problems or metaphysics in so far as these problems pertain to the nature of man. Approach will be primarily systematic; that is to say, an attempt will be made to work out and develop what seem to be the most plausible solutions. Particular attention will be given to contemporary solutions. Topics fall into four areas: 1) basic categories of ontology and what the place of persons is within such a system; 2) traditional questions about the relations between essential and nonessential properties; 3) the nature of "intentionality" —what it is for a thinking thing to have something as an object of its thought; and 4) the nature of agency and the person as a source of change within the world.