Bachelor 2 Philosophy
Credits: 60
Length: 1 year (can be spread over 2 calendar years)
Preparing for degree: Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy
Detailed program
The second year of Philosophy builds on the foundations set in the first year, through the extension of Greek philosophy, especially in the Middle Ages, with the dissemination and (re) discovery of Aristotle.
Through courses on Ancient Philosophy and a vast initiation to medieval thought covering several centuries, the student discovers the richness of this period for the history of philosophy.
The programme also covers an introduction to the history of modern philosophy, philosophical anthropology, and analytical philosophy.
This second year is the chance for students to hone their critical and analytical skills through questions such as the possibility of knowledge, the link between science and philosophy, and the importance of philosophy in the 20th century.
List of Courses
A Brief History of Medieval Philosophy I
Can we be both Christians and genuine philosophers? Are faith and philosophy mutually exclusive, or not?
A Brief History of Medieval Philosophy II
Can we be both Christians and genuine philosophers? Are faith and philosophy mutually exclusive, or not?
Introduction to critical thinking. Part I
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.
Introduction to critical thinking. Part II
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.
Philosophical Anthropology
The term ‘anthropology’ is derived from two Greek words: ἀνθωπος (anthrōpos) and λογος (logos). The former (anthrōpos) refers to ‘man’ in the generic sense, that is to say, it means ‘human being’; the latter (logos) signifies ‘discourse’ or ‘science. Philosophical anthropology is thus concerned with a philosophical account of the mystery of the human being. Naturally, the history of philosophy has produced a wealth of approaches and an abundance of profound insights concerning the human being. It has also given rise to numerous errors in this regard.
This course will engage the question of how we are to construe the relationship that obtains between body and soul/mind. Rather than adopting a purely historical approach, beginning with Aristotle,
the text begins with an exposition of three different contemporary treatments of this issue before proceeding to expound important aspects of Aristotle’s and St. Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysics of human nature.
Introduction to Moral theories in Bioethics II
This course is the second part to Introduction to Moral theories in Bioethics I.
The course will introduce the students to the historical beginning of bioethics, as well as some of the moral theories employed in bioethics discourse. Specifically, this course will:
• Highlight some of the ethical misconducts in modern human history
• Highlight some basic moral principles of research and clinical encounters with human subjects
• Provide insights into how these principles are employed in concrete human contexts.
Philosophy of Language
This course seeks to introduce students to some attempts at outlining the definition and purpose of philosophy of language. From there students will be taken through some traditional problems of philosophy of language such as theories of meaning, reference and denoting, and how these have been debated. The importance of language as a communicative tool that conveys meaning and intentions as well as our own understanding of the world is obvious. This course will seek to take students through this importance from a philosophical perspective.
Ethics: from Ancient to Modern
This course will take students through ethical discourse from the time of Plato to Aristotle, then to Kant and utilitarians. The principal aim of this course is to make students aware of the different traditions or approaches to ethics. Students can then be able to compare some of the most influential ethical theorists in human history.
John Locke's Epistemology and Political Philosophy
John Locke was an influential seventeenth century English philosopher and regarded as one of the greatest Enlightenment thinkers and forerunner of Liberalism and British Empiricism. He can be considered as among the most famous and prominent philosophers and theorists of the seventeenth century. This course offers an extensive and comprehensive account of John Locke’s epistemology and political philosophy based on his core ideas, themes and writings.
David Hume: The Great Empiricist
This is a comprehensive and systematic course on the philosophy of David Hume – a prominent Scottish Enlightenment philosopher widely known for his influential system of philosophical empiricism, naturalism and scepticism. Based on his influential and extreme Empiricist ideas, Hume can be rightly considered as one of the most important philosophers of all time.
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a wider term which includes all kinds of objects and experiences of art, beauty and life. There are many interconnected terms to the process of understanding and the enjoyment of beauty. Artistic experience, philosophy of art, philosophy of beauty, and philosophy of aesthetics are some of the different branches of aesthetics from a general perspective.
Philosophy of Logic Part I
Logic equips individuals with the required skills to identify errors, known as fallacies in an argument. Logic generally studies the relations the mind creates between different products or contents of intellectual knowledge; that is perceptions, propositions and arguments, and seeks to understand the different relations, which arise in the human mind when it knows things
Philosophy of Logic Part II
Logic equips individuals with the required skills to identify errors, known as fallacies in an argument. Logic generally studies the relations the mind creates between different products or contents of intellectual knowledge; that is perceptions, propositions and arguments, and seeks to understand the different relations, which arise in the human mind when it knows things