This course has three chief goals:
(1) to introduce the students to some of the major texts of western philosophy;
(2) to familiarize the students with some basic philosophical concepts,
terminology and problems drawn from three of the major branches of
philosophy—namely, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics;
(3) to supply the students with a general historical framework in which to locate
major figures and movements in philosophy and religion.
We shall proceed historically, beginning with earlier thinkers and ending with
later. The format of the course will be lecture and tutorial. The lectures will (i)
provide the students with a general conceptual and historical framework for
western—and, to a lesser extent, eastern—thought, and (ii) introduce and clarify
those basic philosophical issues raised in the readings for the course that will
constitute the material for tutorial discussion.
The authors to be covered some or all of the