Individual courses

This course will provide an overview of the history of philosophy in the Latin West during the millennium that stretches from the 6th century to the 15th century. This epoch , as everyone knows, is characterized by the decisive influence of Christian faith on the cultural and doctrinal life of the West. We should begin by noting that the Middle Ages, according to some, forms a parenthesis — something like a void — in the history o f philosophy. And in light of this, we should ask:  Can we be both Christians and genuine philosophers? Are faith and philosophy mutually exclusive, or not?

Seventh Lesson: Saint Bonaventure

Eighth Lesson: Saint Thomas Aquinas

Ninth Lesson: Radical Aristotelianism

Tenth Lesson: The Turning Point of 1277 and the Movement of Doctrine in the Late 13th century

Eleventh Lesson: John Duns Scotus

Twelfth Lesson: Doctrinal Life in the Order of Preachers in the 14 th Century

Thirteenth Lesson: William of Ockham and the Movement of Doctrine at the End of the Middle Ages

Section I. What is Theology?
Section II. Theology as Science and Wisdom
Section III. Theological Principles and Methods
Section IV. The Sources of Theology
Section V. The Subject-matters of Theology

Aquinas'notion of friendship and its relevance to eternal happiness. What is happiness? What is its nature and character both here and in the hereafter? Is it attainable? What is the nature and character of friendship? Is it possible? Why is it so integral to happiness, the goal of man, in such a way as to say no one can be called happy who is without friends?

This course introduces some of the key elements in Aristotle's thought. It will consider, among other things, Aristotle on language, logic, “first philosophy” or “wisdom”, and effective choice and action. In the appendices, Aristotle on language and logic in the Organon, on nature in the Physics, on “first philosophy” or “wisdom” in the Metaphysics, and on effective choice and action in the Nichomachean Ethics will be considered.

Legal basis: enforcement of duty on investigators

Philosophical basis: emphasizes principles on which actions are based/justified

Moral basis: Determining which actions are good and allowed or bad and proscribed (in the context of research).

Investigators have a duty to ensure subjects give not only informed, but voluntary consent?

Concerned with restoring and strengthening bonds between professionals, patients and families, not simply dealing with principles like bioethics.
Uses cases and relies on the clinician-patient relationships/encounters in contributing to research on ethical issues

Law is a juridical system that organizes the social aspects of humankind. For that reason the
systematic oranization, the content and the governing principle of canon law and its different
branches should and do conform to how well the Church’s social dimension and social structures
are understood at each moment in time.

To show the implications of normative theories for specific moral issues or contemporary debates on particular ethical issues.

To show the implications of normative theories for specific moral issues or contemporary debates on particular ethical issues.

Divine Impassibility: A Thomistic Critique of Jürgen Moltmann’s Staurocentric Trinitarianism

Classical Christian doctrine has always affirmed divine impassibility, that is, God, in his divine nature, does not suffer. However, this doctrine has been subjected to criticism by some modern passibilist theologians. The thoughts of Saint Thomas Aquinas offer us insights in responding to such passibilist theologians, for divine compassion is grounded on divine impassibility.
 

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

Considering that the divine revelation always takes place in the form of symbols and within human experience, I also study O’Collins’ understanding of symbols and experience, and their relationship with the divine revelation.

How can we access the reality of revelation when both symbols and experience are historically, socially,and religiously conditioned and limited? What is the role of symbols in both the communication of the divine revelation by God and its experience by human beings?

There are many different spiritual pathways that were born in the Indian sub-continent: Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, for example, and others that came to India such as Christian and Muslim. Hindu spirituality which represents the spiritual quest of the vast majority of the people of India is rooted in the relentless and uninterrupted search of the seers from the Indian sub-continent.

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.

We derive our inspiration from at least two distinct traditions: the Jewish and the Christian. It is important that we should be aware of this! A whole set of questions are implied here. What is the relationship between God and the Jewish traditi on, God and Jesus, God and the church?

This 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.
 

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.