In this course, Professor Markus Gabriel takes a tour de force of metaphysics, ontology and epistemology, from ancient myths, to the pre-Socratics, to Kant, Ferge, and Wittgenstein to explore ideas of existence, reality and being- why they fail, and what it means.
In this course, you will learn:
- Why unicorns might have ‘being’ even if they do not exist.
- How ideas about reality in ancient myth have continued through our language.
- How ancient philosophers first tackled the problems of being and existence.
- A history of ideas about the world- from ‘the totality of objects’ to ‘the domain of all domains’.
- Why we need to believe in a ‘monistic’ reality.
- How Ontological Pluralism and Ontological Realism might be combined to create a new theory.
- Why we should reject metaphysics and embrace the non-existence of the world.
Course Syllabus
- Part One: Coherence and Unity
Why are we driven to search for unity in nature? Can we account for reality without being consistent?
- Part Two: The World and Existence
What does it mean for something to exist? If the world does not exist, what does?