PE013-512 - Introduction to Philosophy

  • 2,784 Standard Tuition Fee
  • 12
    Credit Points
  • 0.125 EFT 
  • 5
    AQF level
  • Category developing unit
    B
  • philosophy ethicsUnit Discipline

Exclusions

Prior to 2020, this unit content was delivered under the unit code PE313. Unit exclusions: PE008-612, PE008-712, PE008-812

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students will

A. Know and understand

Demonstrate Foundational knowledge and understanding of the nature and issues of Philosophy in their implications for Christian thought and doctrine

B. Be able to

1. Outline the major movements and issues in Philosophy in their bearing on Christian thought and doctrine

2. Demonstrate skill in relating philosophical thinking to Christian thought and doctrine

3. Present Organised evidence-based perspectives on Philosophy and Christian thought and doctrine

C. Be in a position to

1. Relating perspectives from ‘Introduction to Philosophy’ to contemporary Christian living and ministry contexts

Content

1. General introduction to philosophy

2. Plato with background in the pre-Socratics 

3. Aristotle’s logic and metaphysics 

4. Augustine’s Christian response to Neo-Platonism

5. Aquinas and scholastic philosophy 

6. Descartes, Locke and Hume on Epistemology.

7. Kant on Knowledge, Reason and Religion 

8. Kierkegaard’s Christian philosophy 

9. Friedrich Nietzsche on the human condition and the death of God. 

10. Wittgenstein on language and speech act theory in Austin and Searle

11. Heidegger on being. 

Set Readings

Addis, Mark, Wittgenstein: A Guide for the Perplexed (London & New York: Continuum, 2006).

Allen, Diogenes & Eric O. Springsted, Philosophy for Understanding Theology (Louisville: WJK, 2007).

Anagnostopoulos, Georgios (Ed.), A Companion to Aristotle (Blackwell, 2013).

Bartholomew C. G. & M. W. Goheen, Christian Philosophy (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013).

Beiser, Frederick, C (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hegel (Cambridge :1993).

Bird, Graham, A Companion to Kant (Blackwell, 2010).

Durant, Will. The Story of Philosophy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1933).

Evans, C. Stephen, Kierkegaard: An Introduction (Cambridge: 2009).

Hoffecker, W. A. (ed.), Revolutions in Worldview: Understanding the Flow of Western Thought (P&R Publishing, 2007).

Kenny, Anthony, A New History of Western Philosophy (Oxford, 2012).

Kraut, Richard (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge, 1992).

Nash, Ronald H, Light of the Mind: Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge (University Press of Kentucky, 1969).

Solomon Robert C. & Kathleen M. Higgins, A Short History of Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).

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