PhD Doctor of Philosophy Metaphysics and Ontology 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: The debate between presentism and eternalism in philosophy of time concerns whether:
- Only the present exists vs. past, present, and future are equally real (Correct answer)
- Time is absolute or relative
- Time is objective or subjective
- Change is real or illusory
Correct answer: Only the present exists vs. past, present, and future are equally real
Presentists hold that only present entities exist, while eternalists (four-dimensionalists) hold that past and future entities are as real as present ones.
Question 2: The problem of personal identity over time asks what makes a person at one time the same person as a person at another time. Psychological continuity theories hold that identity consists in:
- Continuity of memories and psychological connections (Correct answer)
- Continuity of the same physical body
- Persistence of a non-physical soul
- Social recognition by others
Correct answer: Continuity of memories and psychological connections
Locke and later Parfit argued that personal identity is constituted by overlapping chains of memory and psychological continuity.
Question 3: Modal realism, defended by David Lewis, holds that all possible worlds are:
- Genuinely existing concrete realities (Correct answer)
- Abstract sets of propositions
- Mental constructs
- Useful fictions for logical analysis
Correct answer: Genuinely existing concrete realities
Lewis argued that each possible world is a concrete spatiotemporal reality just as real as the actual world, differing only in being spatiotemporally isolated from ours.
Question 4: The ship of Theseus paradox raises questions about which of the following metaphysical topics?
- Identity conditions for persisting objects (Correct answer)
- The existence of abstract objects
- Free will and determinism
- The nature of causation
Correct answer: Identity conditions for persisting objects
The paradox asks whether an object replaced plank by plank remains the same object, challenging our criteria for identity through change.
Question 5: In debates about causation, counterfactual theories hold that event C causes event E if and only if:
- Had C not occurred, E would not have occurred (Correct answer)
- C preceded E in time
- C and E are constantly conjoined
- C transfers energy to E
Correct answer: Had C not occurred, E would not have occurred
David Lewis developed counterfactual analysis of causation, defining causal dependence in terms of what would have happened in the nearest possible world where the cause was absent.
Question 6: Substance ontology, dominant in the Aristotelian tradition, holds that the fundamental entities of reality are:
- Individual substances that bear properties (Correct answer)
- Properties or qualities themselves
- Events and processes
- Relations between things
Correct answer: Individual substances that bear properties
For Aristotle, substances — individual cats, stones, people — are the primary beings, while properties like 'white' or 'running' exist only as attributes of substances.
PhD Doctor of Philosophy Metaphysics and Ontology 2
The debate between presentism and eternalism in philosophy of time concerns whether: