Undergraduate Courses in Philosophy

Not All Courses Are Offered In Any Given Academic Year.

Any prerequisites listed are applicable only to students majoring in philosophy.

LEVEL I

PH10A Introduction to Logic: This course aims to introduce students with no prior knowledge of logic to logical reasoning. It has four main objectives: (1) to explain the central concepts of logic such as formal/informal argumentation, types of inference, validity, soundness, fallacy etc.; (2) to present first-order sentential or propositional logic and truth-tables; (3) to construct formal proofs for propositional language; and, (4) to outline elementary predicate logic.

PH10C Introduction to Philosophy: The course aims to introduce students to the methods and materials of philosophy through the exploration of certain fundamental philosophical concerns and problems like the nature of mind and personal identity, free will and determinism, and the existence of God. It will involve presentation of a range of philosophical issues and arguments both as they occur in the writings of philosophers of the past and those of the modern and contemporary eras. Essentially the course is an exercise in getting students acquainted with philosophising as a distinctive mode of thinking

PH19B Ethics I: Introduction to Ethics and Applied Ethics This course consists of two parts. The first part introduces students to the domain of ethics as the study of theories about how we ought to live, and what is of value or concern in life. The second part takes a more pragmatic approach and attempts to deal with practical applications or consequences of ethics like the concern for the environment and animals, issues such as abortion and euthanasia, and matters relating to funding and distribution of resources vis-à-vis public health and welfare state.

PH19C Greek Philosophy This course in intended to initiate students into the historical precedence to some of the philosophical issues with reference to ancient Greek Philosophy. The major emphasis will be on Plato and Aristotle. The focus will be mainly on metaphysical and epistemological aspects of certain selected texts by those major classical philosophers.

 

LEVEL II

PH20C Philosophy of Mind Prerequisite: Preferably PH10C.  The question 'What is it to have a mind?' forms the focal point in Philosophy of Mind, and the objective of this course is to essay and assay various attempts at answering this question. The course starts with an overview of the geography of mind, and chief among the issues requiring discussion are the relation between mind and brain, the nature of consciousness, subjectivity and intentionality, and the question whether mental phenomena have causal powers or are merely by-products of brain activity. Pathological states of mind like self-deception and weakness of the will are also discussed in the hope of shedding light on the normal state of mind.

PH20D Philosophy of Science Prerequisite: Preferably PH10C and PH10A.  Philosophical investigation into the assumptions, claims, concepts, and methods of science raises questions of both theoretical and practical significance. This course aims to study the philosophical underpinning of scientific activity and to scrutinise such issues as: the old and new riddles of induction, the nature of natural laws, the relation between theory and observation, the function and nature of theoretical terms, the concept of confirmation and its paradoxical implications, underdetermination of theory by data, theoretical reduction, and realism versus anti-realism in science.

PH28A Aesthetics Prerequisite: Preferably PH10C.  Philosophers have considered questions raised by the nature of beauty, of art, and critical appreciation since ancient times, and the discipline of aesthetics has a long tradition that stretches from Plato to the present. Aesthetics has also been the subject of a number of theoretical challenges that investigate the conceptual frameworks customarily assumed by theories of art. This course is designed not only to introduce students to the study of the nature of beauty which intersects with topics in metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language, but also the theory of taste and criticism in the creative and performing arts.

PH29A Epistemology and Methodology Prerequisite: Preferably PH10C.  This course concentrates on the scope and limits of knowledge, its sources and justification. It is divided into two parts. Part 1 focuses on epistemological issues such as scepticism, analysis of knowledge, relevance of gender and race to understanding and the ethics of epistemology. Part 2 deals with methodological questions like the Problem of Induction and in general the status of inductive inferences, the notion of evidence or corroboration and its attendant Paradox of Confirmation, and the notion of explanation.

PH29B Modern Philosophy I: Rationalism Prerequisite: Preferably PH10C. Contemporary philosophy is very much indebted to what are referred to as the moderns, namely, several 17^th and 18^th century philosophers. Although the moderns were not isolated thinkers and their works were everywhere influenced by the thoughts of their predecessors and contemporaries, it is not extravagant to credit them with initiating modern philosophy. This course is aimed to study what has become known as the school of rationalism in which three philosophers stand out: namely, Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz.  The course covers a selection of subjects from their works with an emphasis on their metaphysical and epistemological aspects.

PH29C Modern Philosophy II: Empiricism and Kant Prerequisite: Preferably 29B.  This course is a sequel to the first course on Modern Philosophy and is designed to study the school of empiricism, and Kant's philosophy as a reaction to both rationalism and empiricism. Among the empiricists, the works of three figures loom large: Locke, Berkeley and Hume. Again, the course is concerned mainly with epistemological and metaphysical aspects of empiricist and Kantian philosophy.

PH29D Philosophical Logic Prerequisite: PH10A and PH10C.  This course is not so much about formal logic but about a series of connected and highly important concepts like reference, truth, existence, identity, necessity, and quantification. These are notions that not only have applications to the foundations of logic, but are also fundamental to thought in general. They relate to the analysis of reasoning, functioning and structure of natural language and categories of existence. Philosophical logic is in many respects the workshop of philosophy, and the course aims to introduce students to its methods and materials and also to its implications for other areas in philosophy.

 

LEVEL III

PH38A Philosophy of the African Diaspora Prerequisite: PH10C.  This course is intended to give an insight into the philosophical heritage of African thought, specifically in terms of its metaphysical and epistemological dimensions. Also, as African and Diasporic Philosophy is still a relatively new discipline and a definite consensus has yet to emerge with regard to its content and contours, the question of identity would be a major concern of the course. Against this background, issues such as negritude, ethnophilosophy, and descriptive versus revisionary metaphysics would form a substantial part of the discussion. Generally, the course is concerned with the nature, problems, and methods of African and Diasporic Philosophy.

PH38B 20^th Century Analytic Philosophy Prerequisite: PH29C.  This course is intended to cover some of the major figures of 20^th century Analytic Philosophy. A selection will be made from the work of philosophers like Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein (early and late works), Ayer, Quine, and Carnap.

PH38C 20^th Continental Philosophy Prerequisite: PH39B.  This course is intended to cover some of the major figures of 20^thcentury Continental Philosophy and their relevance to issues such as post-modernism and feminism. They include philosophers like Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida and Rorty.

PH38D Philosophy of Language Prerequisite: PH29D.  The question of what it is to be meaningful is the central concern of Philosophy of Language and this course aims to canvass attempts at delineating the meaning of meaning. Language is Janus faced, facing outward to the external world and inward towards speakers' words. Yet, how does language relate to the mind on the one hand and reality on the other? Also, should our view of language influence our view of the world? To enable students to tackle such topics is the principal objective of the course. Generally, the question 'What is a language?' forms the focal point, and it will be addressed through the works of Chomsky, Davidson, Grice, Quine and Wittgenstein. Attention will also be paid to concepts like metaphorical meaning, egocentric expressions and proper names.

PH38E Philosophy of Psychology Prerequisite: PH10C or PH20C.  Psychology attempts to explain such phenomena as perception, cognition, emotion and language learning. The goal of this course is to find out how such tasks are accomplished by psychology, with an emphasis on its theoretical tenets and methodology. The objective is to enable students to sort out the various ways in which philosophical assumptions appear in, affect, and illuminate psychology, and conversely how psychological insights impress on philosophical problems and positions. Philosophy of psychology is such a vast area that one has to be highly selective in the choice of issues. However, topics treated in the course will include subjects such as mental causation, computational theory of mind, consciousness, folk psychology and methodological status of psychoanalysis.

PH38F Philosophy of Cognitive Science Prerequisite: PH10C or PH20C.  Philosophy of cognitive science comes under the umbrella of philosophy of psychology. However, due to the rapid expansion of the field, it is gradually becoming an autonomous area of study in its own right. Basically, cognitive science is predicated on the idea that the mind, or at least some important mental phenomena, can be understood in computational terms. Currently there are two allegedly rival computational models of mind: namely, classical computationalism and connectionism. This course is designed to look at the fundamental conception of computationalism and its various ramifications for topics such as folk psychology, the language of thought, modularity of the mind, linguistics, vision, and the notion of content in causal and explanatory contexts.

PH38G Philosophy of Mathematics Prerequisite: PH29A or PH29D.  This course enquires into the concepts of and justification for the principles used in mathematics. Two central problems in the field concern what, if anything, mathematical statements are about, and how it is that we come to have knowledge of such statements. In more details, the prime question in philosophy of mathematics concerns the status of the subject which can be split into four sub-questions: (1) How do we know that our mathematical theories are true? (2) What is mathematics about? In other words, if a mathematical statement is true, what makes it true? (3) Are mathematical truths true by necessity, and, if so, what is the source of this necessity? (4) How is it possible to apply mathematical truths to external reality, and in what does this application consist? The objective is to initiate students into thinking about these questions in a systematic and consistent way.

PH39A Ethics II: Meta-ethics and Theories of Ethics Prerequisite: PH19B.  This course is a sequel to Ethics I, in which attention is focused on issues of normative nature or first-order: that is, questions about how we ought to live, and what is of value or concern in life. Ethics II, however, is a reflective examination of first-order ethical decision and judgements, and it is, therefore, referred to as second-order ethics or meta-ethics. It looks at issues like the nature of moral judgements and enquires whether they express genuine beliefs, and whether they can be objectively true. Cognitivism and non-cognitivism, realism and relativism, and other moral theoretical frameworks will be among the topics discussed.

PH39B Continental Philosophy: 19^th Century Period Prerequisite: PH29C.  'Continental Philosophy' is an umbrella term that conventionally refers to the philosophical work coming out of France, Germany, and elsewhere in continental Europe since the beginning of 19^th century. This course, however, concentrates only on the 19^th century period of Continental Philosophy where three post-Kantian philosophers along with the originators of phenomenology occupy a central place: namely, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Brentano and Husserl. The course aims to initiate students into the intricacies of their thoughts and their impact on the subsequent development of Continental Philosophy.

PH39C Metaphysics Prerequisite: PH29D.  All sub-disciplines of philosophy share certain problems about what ultimately exists in the universe. Consideration of such issues constitutes the province of metaphysics. This course aims to provide students with an understanding and means of tackling questions about what there is in reality and how the world works. The following topics are among the issues discussed in the course: appearance and reality, substance and identity, causation and laws, universals and particulars, space and time.