Master of Advanced Study Philosophy

Plato ranks as one of the most important thinkers in the Western philosophical tradition. This module introduces the student to some of the fundamental ideas that inform his works as well as guiding the student through some developments in his presentation of these ideas.

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.

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

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

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. 

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.

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.

This course is divided into six sections : What is Philosophy? ; Why Study Philosophy? ; The place of philosophy in theology ; Main Areas of Philosophy ; Presocratic Philosophy ; Socrates

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.

The term ‘anthropology’ is derived from two Greek words: ἀνθωπος (anthrōpos) and λογος (logos). 

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.
 

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.

The norm is the idea central to the thought of Michel Foucault. It is the point from which he studies modern society. He distinguishes the norm from other forms of power.

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

The main objective of this unit is to get an above all understanding of what Indian Philosophy is and in what circumstances it has developed. Though Indian Philosophy has developed in different parts of India it has many common characteristics hence the student is likely to know a few important ones. Furthermore, one should have a basic understanding of what Indian philosophy is accused of.

By Studying this particular unit one must be able to understand what is the meaning of Upaniṣad, how it was developed from Vedas and what are its main teachings and how they reach their logical culmination in the identity of the self and the Brahman. One must also be able to understand the Upaniṣadic view point of bondage and liberation along with the cosmogony and puruṣārtas.

The main objective of the conclusion is to introduce the students to the different systems of Indian Philosophy as it deals with various philosophical thoughts of several traditions originated in Indian Subcontinent.

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.

This course seeks to introduce students to analytic philosophy. Students will be taken through some attempts at defining what analytic philosophy is, in particular how analytic philosophy understands philosophical problems and its own suggestions at approaching those problems. Then students will be led through an example of a debate in analytic philosophy. We will look at Strawson’s paper on referring and Russell’s response to it. The rest of the course will look at various topics considered proper to analytic philosophy.

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 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.

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.

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.

Metaphysics, a discipline with long standing history, has been understood in different ways. Traditionally, it is considered as the most general and fundamental discipline of all other disciplines. Metaphysics or the Philosophy of Being as Being seeks to answer questions about existence. 

Important issues in legal philosophy range from abstract conceptual questions about the nature of law and legal systems, to normative questions about the relationship between law and morality, politics and other norms as well as the justification of various legal institutions. Although this course will deal with conceptual themes of philosophy of law especially in the first section, the course generally focusses on the practical and readily applicable aspects of the field.

SEM48 - Human Rights, Philosophy and Religious Studies

4th October - 29th November 2021 

presented by Isaac Mutelo

The Hegelian philosophy presents itself as a system, a systematic knowledge. It is not the expression of a feeling or an intuition. Philosophy is a science, a knowledge. It's not a way of life like ancient philosophy...

The history of the debate about the possibility, nature and validity of knowledge is one of the very oldest, and one about which virtually every great philosopher has had something to say. "Is knowledge possible?" is a very broad question.

E-seminar in Philosophy and Social Sciences
by Jaco Kruger
From 11th April to 6th June 2022

E-seminar in Philosophy and Law

by Isaac Mutelo

From 11th April to 6th June 2021