Skip to content

2. Metaphysics

Pop Culture and Metaphysics 1

Andronicus of Rhodes and the Birth of Aristotelian Metaphysics 2

Zeno’s Paradox 3

The Grandfather Paradox 4

  • The video presents a problem where a penguin travels back in time to kill his grandfather.
  • If the grandfather is killed, then the penguin would never have been born to kill the grandfather.
  • Parallel universes are suggested as a solution to the paradox, but they are not convincing. It means that the penguin would have killed a different version of his grandfather, and not his own.

Kant and Metaphysics 5 6

Charles Simic 7 8

  • Much of Simic’s poetry comes from his childhood in Yugoslavia during World War II.
  • Charles Simic is a widely recognized poet, his poetry won numerous awards.
  • He taught English and creative writing for over 30 years at the University of New Hampshire. Although he emigrated to the US from Yugoslavia as a teenager, Simic writes in English, drawing upon his own experiences of war-torn Belgrade to compose poems about the physical and spiritual poverty of modern life.
  • Simic’s father left the country for work in Italy, and his mother tried several times to follow, only to be turned back by authorities. When Simic was 15, his mother finally arranged for the family to travel to Paris. After a year, Simic sailed for America and had a reunion with his father. The family moved to Chicago, where Simic attended high school and began to take a serious interest in poetry.
  • Simic’s first poems were published in 1959; when he was 21. Simic began college at the University of Chicago, but was drafted into the armed service in 1961.
  • Collections:
    • What the Grass Says (1967).
    • Dismantling the Silence (1971).
    • Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk (1974).
    • Charon’s Cosmology (1977).
    • School for Dark Thoughts (1978).
    • Classic Ballroom Dances (1980).
    • Austerities (1982).
    • Weather Forecast for Utopia & Vicinity (1983).
    • Unending Blues (1986).
    • The World Doesn’t End (1989).
    • Hotel Insomnia (1992).
    • A Wedding in Hell (1994).
    • Walking the Black Cat (1996).
    • Jackstraws (1999).
    • Night Picnic (2001).
    • The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems (2003).
    • My Noiseless Entourage (2005).
    • That Little Something (2008).
    • Master of Disguises (2010).
    • New and Selected Poems: 1962-2012 (2013).
    • The Lunatic (2015).
    • Scribbled in the Dark (2017).
    • Come Closer and Listen: New Poems (2018).
    • Pickaxe (2019).

References

  1. Kornhaber, SP. (2017, Jan 5). Pop Culture is Having a Metaphysical Moment. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://uk.news.yahoo.com/pop-culture-having-metaphysical-moment-120000698.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEseSZrrF7pudjnrXaxlquZ7WLToGniPy4wtNkBRSN1I8zSb62LZdiLTHxbCRgqvHKe_eCEmaMCqsfz5ShF_iTgjQ9OrVxzvsMVh9JUDLjeTay1QAs0urRDY9_6bU2JYX6sCVT7g90CYOhEyZ17C5SZrOSwis-XkR6oszgthb22I ↩

  2. Even Philosophers can confuse themselves. Read the short article from Stanford University on Andronicus of Rhodes available at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-commentators/index.html and prepare to discuss the birth of Aristotelian Metaphysics in the Discussion Group. ↩

  3. Read about Zeno’s Paradox at http://platonicrealms.com/encyclopedia/zenos-paradox-of-the-tortoise-and-achilles. This is a classic Metaphysical Dilemma that you will probably recognize. ↩

  4. Watch the video about The Grandfather Paradox at https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/wi-phi/wiphi-metaphysics-epistemology/wiphi-metaphysics/v/the-grandfather-paradox ↩

  5. Read part “b.” in Kant article “The Duality of the Human Situation” available at: http://www.iep.utm.edu/kantmeta/#SH8b and think about whether we act upon the world or it acts upon us. How does reason guide our actions and reactions to the world? ↩

  6. More on Kant: https://philpapers.org/browse/kant-metaphysics ↩

  7. Read: Harp, J. (2004). Simic’s Surrealist Metaphysics: A Review of Charles Simic, “The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems”.” The Iowa Review 34(2), 170-175. Available at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview/vol34/iss2/52 ↩

  8. Now read: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charles-simic about Simic ↩