Master of Advanced Study Philosophy

Credits: 60
Duration: 1 year (can be spread out)
Entry requirements: Master's Degree or PhD in another field
Qualification obtained: Domuni University degree
The Master of Advanced Studies in Philosophy is aimed at students who already hold a Master’s degree or a PhD and wish to acquire in-depth skills in Philosophy.
This programme leads to a Master of Advanced Studies worth 60 ECTS. This certificate would not, however, grant access to the Doctoral School of Philosophy.
OBJECTIVES:
The advanced masters have several objectives as follows:
- To deepen one’s knowledge of a specific domain
- To acquire complementary skills
- Interdisciplinary dialogue
- To complete original research
STRUCTURE OF THE PROGRAMME:
The programme is structured as follows:
- An educational aspect with specialised courses as well as online interactive seminars
- A Research aspect with a master thesis, which is supervised by a research director
Courses / 4 courses: 24 ECTS (to be chosen from the list of courses on the MA2 page)
Seminars/ 1 online seminar: 6 ECTS
Research/ 1 master thesis: 30 ECTS
List of Courses
Aristotle and the Aristotelian Tradition
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.
Foundations of Ethics
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
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.
Kant: A philosophy of Freedom
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.
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 I
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.
Indian Philosophy Unit I
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.
Indian Philosophy Unit II
What is expected from the students in this Unit is that they must be able to point out the importance of Vedas in Indian Philosophy, the classification of Vedic literature and must have a proper understanding of the Samhitās, Brāhmaṇas and Āraṇyakas. However, the Upaniśads will be dealt separately. Further, one must be acquainted with a few other important teachings of Veda such as Vedic religion, how monism developed from polytheism, and a basic understanding of what ṛta, the law of karma, the theory of creation, the institution of yajña, āśramas and varṇa is.
Indian Philosophy Unit III
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.
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.
Analytic Philosophy
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.
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.
Political Philosophy: An Introduction
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.
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.
Introduction to philosophy of law
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.