Philosophy
Syllabus
Week 1: Philosophy?
- Who are you? - Greetings and introductions
- What is Philosophy?
Week 2: Why Philosophy?
- Philosophical areas
- Philosophical questions and concepts
- The value of Philosophy
Week 3 : A little bit of Logic
- How do we philosophize?
- Logic toolkit: arguing with arguments; truth and validity; kinds of reasoning; avoiding fallacies
Week 4: The first Metaphysicians
- The birth of Western Philosophy
- Why the Greeks?
- The philosophers from Miletus and so on…
Week 5: The Last Days of Socrates
- Socratic dialogues: a taste of philosophy
Week 6: What is reality?
- Plato’s cave
- Aristotle’s epistemological perspective
Weeks 7 and 8: What is knowledge? How far can we know
- Reason and experience
- Plato and the way of reason
- Descartes’ dreams and demons
- Berkeley’s epistemological perspective
- Aristotle and the way of experience
- St. Thomas and Locke
- The problem of certainty:
- Pyrrho, the skepticist
- Hume
- Kant and the limits of reason
Week 9 and 10 : Who are we? Are we alone?
- Does God exist?
- The problem of evil
Week 11 and 12: How should we live?
- Menu of ethical perspectives
- Plato
- The Divine Command Theory
- Aristotle
- Kant
Week 13: How can we live together?
- Political philosophy
- Individual and group interests: the best form of government
- Civil disobedience and terrorism
Week 14: A touch of Art and Beauty
- What is art?
- What for?
Week 15: My philosophy
- Philosopher of the Year
- Philosophy and I
- Letter to future philosophers