Metaphysics is the study of things in their ultimate causes. As such, the specialty of metaphysics is that it seeks the final explanation or the ultimate causes of things precisely in so far as they are, in so far as they exist, or in so far as they are real. Aristotle called it “First Philosophy” or “Theology” since it leads to the first principle or the ultimate explanation of all things.

All human knowledge begins with sense experience but can terminate sometimes in the senses, or in the imagination or in the intellect alone . Accordingly we can distinguish between three levels of scientific knowledge corresponding to the three degrees of abstraction from matter which can be made by the intellect in its examination of reality.

Ethics, like philosophy, is in search of principles and universals. Ethics reflects on a particular human experience, namely, the experience of the good or of being good, and sets it in the context of the whole. One could also say that ethics reflects on what is the good and how our lives are oriented towards it

This course intends to familiarize the students with the debates and contributions of the main philosophical scholars and theories which have developed through history from the time of Greek Sophists through the XX century. Based on the Aristotelian assumption that man is a by nature a political animal, the course intends to give ultimate answers to questions such as how material goods should be distributed; on what basis people should possess property; what are the justified reasons why some people have more properties than others; why political power has to exist; what kinds of governments are acceptable; what does it determine the correct balance between authority and autonomy;  what is the right balance between private and common good; what are the justified limits to my/your freedom.

There are many different definitions of Social Political Philosophy (SPP): the political can be defined as social decision making; philosophy is the most general form of inquiry that is the attempt to say what it is true and why. It is a  normative discipline:  SPP tries to establish norms, rules and ideal standards, how the social and political life should be. Different from Political science, which is the art of governing people, the discipline and the practice of assuring the “common good” of a certain society. Different from Social Sciences, which are descriptive disciplines which try to know the social facts and to find connections between them.

PROGRAM 

Part I: Historical contributions on social political thought

The Sophists: philosophy goes public; Plato’s Republic; Aristotle’s Politics; Cicero: Ius Gentium; Patristic era, St. Augustine: “De Civitate Dei”; St. Thomas on Natural law; Marsilio: “Defensor Pacis”; Machiavelli: The Prince; The Protestant reformation,  Luther & Calvin political thought; Hobbes, Locke on Social Contract; Rousseau: Human nature and society; Montesquieu: Separation of powers; Tocqueville: Democracy in America; Adam Smith:  The Wealth of nations; John Stuart Mill: On Liberty; Marx’s Critique of capitalism; Freud: Civilization and its discontents; Dostoyevsky’s Grand inquisitor; Hitler’s Nazism & Mussolini’s Fascism; Gandhi use of Power

Part II: Contemporary social political issues

Theories of Justice & distribution of property; Rights & Freedom; Natural law and social political philosophy; Justifications of the State, forms of Government ; Environment, Individualism, Multiculturalism, Feminism, Civil movements in a globalized world.

BASIC  BIBLIOGRAPHY

Leo Strauss, History of Political Philosophy, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1990

W.L. Mc Bride, Social and Political Philosophy, Paragon House, New York, 1994

Wolff, An Introduction to Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996

Santoni, & J. Sommerville, Social and Political Philosophy, Anchor Books, NY, 1963

Philosophy of religion is also known as philosophical theology or philosophy of God. Other names include natural theology and theodicy.

The validation of the course is done at the end of the second part

Philosophy of religion is also known as philosophical theology or philosophy of God. Other names include natural theology and theodicy.

The course aims to show that from its origins through the early efforts made by the earliest oriental thinkers before the era of ancient great Greek thinkers, philosophy has remained a branch of knowledge concerned with fundamental questions concerning existence, human values, language, knowledge and many other matters.

Etymologically, the word "Epistemology", from the Greek, means the science of knowledge. It is an investigation of knowledge and its problems. A synonymous term is Criteriology which again from the Greek means to distinguish or judge. It deals with testin g knowledge to find truth or detect error.

The modern epistemological problem has two aspects:

1. The opposition between science and philosophy or truth and error. We find this basically in Descartes and Kant.

2. The conflict between science and science or that of contemporary and classic physics and not an opposition between science and philosophy or truth and error.

According to Gibelin in his Foreword to Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, Freedom is the central theme of Kant’s philosophy. This course will introduce to Kant, centering on Freedom as a key concept to understand his philosophy, in the three spheres defined by the critical project: Metaphysics, Moral and Aesthetics.

Essential Questions of Philosophy in this very complete course about Being and Knowing.

Political philosophy is a branch of philosophy that studies essential questions about various political issues, concepts and problems that are important to any human society.  Based on concepts such as state, justice, liberty, rights, government and authority, political philosophy can be regarded as the primal ethics applied to a group of people, geared towards the setting up of a political society, the maintenance of a stable society and the best possible way for citizens to act.