Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Republican State Establishment

Based on the Right of Economic Administration

Gumilyov Eurasian National University

 

Faculty of Social Sciences

Department of Philosophy

 

Approved by the Dean of

Faculty of Social Sciences

RSE based on REA L.N. Gumilyov

Eurasian National University

_________________________

____________Kashhynbay B.B.

_________________ 2016____

 

Course Methodical-Training Complex

 

 

On course FIL 2102 PHILOSOPHY

 

 

intended for studentsof the specialties

B020200-International Relations, 5B030200-International Law

 

Astana

The requirements for the design of course methodical-training complex (CMTC)

1. Title page +

2. Typical curriculum for courses of compulsory component

3. Syllabus (course program for students under conditions of credit learning technology) +

4. Course glossary and general methodical recommendations (tips) on working with course conceptual apparatus +

5. Summaries of lectures of course topics and methodical tips to help students master the course content +

6. Outline of seminar (practical) and/or laboratory classes and hints on preparation for them +

7. Assignments for students, self-study accompanied by information about work-intensity and hints on their completion +

8. Materials for current, interim evaluation and final exam and hints on how to prepare for them +

9. Hints on writing course theses (in case they are planned in the curriculum) +

10. Multimedia and software accompaniment of classes (it depends on the course content) +

GLOSSARY

This is a brief glossary of some of the general philosophical terms and basic concepts used in philosophy to explain other concepts and doctrines; it is not an exhaustive alphabetical listing of the schools, doctrines, branches and concepts themselves.

 

A posteriori-where knowledge is possible only subsequent, or posterior, to certain sense experiences, in addition to the use of reason (empirical).

A priori-where knowledge is possible independently of, or prior to, any experience, and requires only the use of reason (non-empirical).

Axiom-a proposition that is not proved or demonstrated but considered to be self-evident and taken for granted.

Causality-the law that states that each cause has a specific effect, and that this effect is dependent on the initial identities of the agents involved.

Consciousness-the faculty which perceives and identifies things that exist, and the relationship between oneself and one's environment.

Contingency-the status of facts that are not logically necessarily true or false (the possibility of something happening or not happening).

Deductive Reasoning-reasoning that proceeds from general principles or premises to derive particular information (what follows necessarily from given premises).

Dialectic-the exchange of arguments and counter-arguments, respectively advocating propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses), in arriving at a conclusion (synthesis).

Emergence-the way complex systems and patterns arise (emerge) out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.

Entity-something that has a distinct and separate existence, although not necessarily a material existence.

Essence-the attributes that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is, and that it has necessarily.

Existence-the state or fact of existing or being (the continuance in being or life).

Fallacy-any sort of mistake in reasoning or inference (essentially, anything that causes an argument to go wrong).

Formal Language-an organized set of symbols which can be precisely defined in terms of just the shapes and locations of those symbols, without any reference to any meanings or interpretations.

Forms (Platonic Forms)-the universal concepts or ideas which make all of the phenomenal world intelligible (the essences of objects, rather than their physical forms or appearances).

Freethought-the general philosophical viewpoint that holds that beliefs should be formed on the basis of science and logic, and should not be influenced by emotion, authority, tradition, or dogma.

Free Will-the capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives.

Hermeneutics-the study of theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts (often the Bible).

Hylomorphism-the theory which conceptually identifies substance as matter and form, such that substances are conceived as forms inhering in matter.

Identity-whatever makes an entity definable and recognizable, in terms of possessing a set of qualities or characteristics that distinguish it from entities of a different type (essentially, whatever makes something the same or different).

Inductive Reasoning-reasoning that proceeds from particular information to derive general principles (arriving at a reliable generalization from observations).

Infinite Regress-a causal relationship transmitted through an indefinite number of terms in a series, with no term that begins the causal chain (going back through a chain forever).

Instantiation-the representation of an idea in the form of an instance or example of it.

Law of Non-Contradiction-the basic law of logic which states that it is not possible for something to be and not be at the same time.

Monad-an unextended, indivisible and indestructible entity that is the basic constituent of physical reality.

Natural Language-a language that is spoken, written, or signed by humans for general-purpose communication (ordinary language as opposed to formal or constructed languages).

Normative-indicative of how things should or ought to be (as opposed to positive or descriptive).

Noumenon-the intellectual conception of a thing as it is in itself, not as it is known through perception (c.f. Phenomenon).

Object-a thing, an entity or a being, that can have properties and bear relations to other objects. They are usually types of particulars, but there can also be abstract objects.

Ontology-the study of conceptions of reality, existence and the nature of being.

Paradox-a statement or sentiment that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense, and yet is perhaps true in fact, or a statement that is actually self-contradictory (and therefore false) even though it appears true.

Particular-a concrete individual object which cannot be copied without introducing new distinct particulars.

Phenomenon-a thing as it appears to be, as constructed by the mind and perceived by the senses (c.f. Noumenon).

Predicate-that which is affirmed or denied concerning the subject of a proposition (i.e. how we describe the subject of a proposition). The predicate is one of the two main constituents of a sentence (the other being the subject), containing the verb and its complements.

Premise-one of the propositions in a deductive argument. Essentially, it is a claim that is a reason for, or objection against, some other claim.

Property-an attribute or abstraction characterizing an object, but distinct from the object which possesses it.

Proposition-the content or meaning of an assertion or declarative sentence, which is capable of being either true or false.

Qualia-properties of sensory experiences, or the nebulous concept of "the way things seem to us".

Scientific Method-the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.

Social Contract-that idea people give up some rights to a government and/or other authority in forming nations in order to jointly preserve or maintain social order and security.

Society-a collection or grouping of individuals with some shared interactions and common interests.

Substance-the unchanging essence of a thing, that exists by itself, and which has attributes and modes which, however, may change.

Syllogism-a logical argument in which one proposition (the conclusion) is inferred from two others (the premises) of a certain form.

Tabula Rasa-the idea that individual human beings are born with no innate mental content, but their knowledge is built up gradually from their experiences and sensory perceptions of the outside world (literally, "blank slate").

Teleology-the belief that events occur with a natural purpose or design, or in order to achieve some specific goal.

Theodicy-an attempt to reconcile the existence of evil or suffering in the world with the belief in an omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent God.

Theology-the study of the nature of God and religious truth, which seeks to justify or support religious claims.

Theorem-a statement which has been proven to be true by a rigorous argument.

Universal-a property of an object, which can exist in more than one place at the same time (e.g. the quality of "redness").

Virtue-the moral excellence of a person, or any trait valued as being good.

Zeitgeist-the intellectual and cultural climate of an era (literally, "the spirit of the age").

Optional Readings

1. Adamson, P. (2007) Al-Kindi (New York: Oxford University Press).

2. David Reisman and Ahmed al-Rahim (eds), Before and After Avicenna, Leiden/Boston, 2003.

3. O. Leaman, An Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)

4. Christian Jambet, The Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mulla Sadra. Jeff Fort (trans.). (New York: Zone Books, 2006).

5. Ibrahim Kalin, Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy. Mulla Sadra on Existence, Intellect, and Intuition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

6. Muhammad Kamal. From Essence to Being: The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra and Martin Heidegger (London: ICAS Press, 2010).

7. Sayeh Meisami, Mulla Sadra (Oxford: Oneworld, 2013).

8. Mohammed Rustom, The Triumph of Mercy: Philosophy and Scripture in Mulla Sadra (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012).

Marxism

1. Materialistic character of Marx’s dialectics.

2. Basic ideas of the social doctrine of Marxism.

 

Marxism, the philosophical and political school or tradition his work gave rise to, is a variety of radical or revolutionary Socialism conceived as a reaction against the rampant Capitalism and Liberalism of 19th Century Europe, with working class self-emancipation as its goal. Among other things, he is known for his analysis of history (particularly his concept of historical materialism) and the search for a systemic understanding of socioeconomic change.

Marxism is an economic and social system derived from the work of Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1829-1895). It is atheoretical-practical framework based on the analysis of "the conflicts between the powerful and the subjugated" with working class self-emancipation as its goal. It asserts that the Capitalist mode of production enables the bourgeoisie (or owners of capital) to exploit the proletariat (or workers) and that class struggle by the proletariat must be the central element in social and historical change. According to Marx, a socialist revolution must occur, in order to establish a "dictatorship of the proletariat" with the ulimate goal of public ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.

Classical Marxism is a variety of Socialism and provides the intellectual base for various forms of Communism. It was conceived (as to some extent was Anarchism) as a reaction against the rampant Capitalism and Liberalism of 19th Century Europe. It is grounded in Materialism and it is committed to political practice as the end goal of all thought. As a philosopher, Marx was influenced by a number of different thinkers, including: German philosophers (e.g. Immanuel Kant, Hegel, and Feuerbach); British political economists (e.g. Adam Smith and David Ricardo); and French social theorists (e.g. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Charles Fourier, Henri de Saint-Simon, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Flora Tristan and Louis Blanc).

The defining document of Marxism and Communism is "The Communist Manifesto", published jointly by Marx and Engels in 1848. The first volume of "Das Kapital" (Marx's ambitious treatise on political economy and critical analysis of Capitalism and its practical economic application) was published in 1867, with two more volumes edited and published after his death by Engels. For the most part, these works were collaborations and, while Marx is the more famous of the two, he was strongly influencedby Engels' earlier works, and Engels was also responsible for much of the interpretation and editing of Marx's work.

Some of the basic ideas behind Marxism include:

· Exploitation and Alienation: Capitalism is based on the exploitation of workers by the owners of capital, due to the fact that the workers' labour power generates a surplus value greater than the workers' wages. This expropriation of surpluses leads to increasing alienation and resentment of workers, because they have no control over the labour or product which they produce (a systematic result of the Capitalist system, it is argued).

· Labour Theory of Value: The value of a commodity can be objectively measured by the average amount of labour hours that are required to produce that commodity. This is similar to the value theory established by classical economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo (1772-1823), although for Marx it is socially necessary labour which is important (i.e. the amount needed to produce, and reproduce, a commodity under average working conditions).

· Base and Superstructure: Relations are established among people as they produce and reproduce the material requirements of life, and these relations form the economic basis of society. A "superstructure" of political and legal institutions, and a social consciousness of religious, philosophical, ideological and other ideas arises on this "base". Any social revolution (caused by conflict between the development of material productive forces and the relations of production) will result in a change in the economic basis and thence to the transformation of the superstructure.

· Class Consciousness: Any social class possesses an awareness (of itself, of the conditions of life, and of the social world around it), and its capacity to act in its own rational interests is based on this awareness. Thus, class consciousness must be attained before any class may mount a successful revolution.

· Ideology: The ruling class foists the dominant ideology on all members of that society in order to make its own interests appear to be the interests of all. Therefore, the ideology of a society can be used to confuse alienated groups and create a false consciousness (such as commodity fetishism, where social relationships are transformed into apparently objective relationships between commodities or money).

· Historical and Dialectical Materialism: This refers to the adaptation by Marx and Engels of Georg Hegel's theory of Dialectics, the concept that any idea or event (the thesis) generates its opposite (the antithesis), eventually leading to areconciliation of opposites (a new, more advanced synthesis). Marx realized that this could also be applied to material matters like economics, hence the label Dialectical Materialism. The application of the principle of Dialectical Materialism to history and sociology, the main context in which Marx used it, is known as Historical Materialism. The resulting theory posits that history is the product of class struggle and obeys the general Hegelian principle of the development of thesis and antithesis.

Primary sources:

1. Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels, Gesamtausgabe (MEGA), Berlin, 1975.

2. Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, Collected Works, New York and London: International Publishers. 1975.

3. Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, Selected Works, 2 Volumes, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962.

4. Marx, Karl, Karl Marx: Selected Writings, 2^nd edition, David McLellan (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

5. Engels, Frederick, (1877) Anti-Dühring, Part I: Philosophy, XIII. Dialectics. Negation of the Negation

6. Engels, Frederick, (1883) Dialectics of Nature. Marxists.org. Retrieved 2011-11-03.

7. Lenin, V.I., On the Question of Dialectics: A Collection, pp. 7-9. Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1980.

8. Lenin, V.I., Philosophycal Notebooks. Collected Works, Vol. 38. Digital edition. www.marx2mao.com

Secondary sources:

1. Breckman, W. 1999, Marx, the Young Hegelians, and the Origins of Radical Social Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2. Brudney, Daniel, 1998, Marx's Attempt to Leave Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

3. Cohen, G.A., 2001, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence, 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

4. Desai, Megnad, 2002, Marx's Revenge, London: Verso.

5. Leopold, David, 2007, The Young Karl Marx, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

6. Singer, Peter, 2000, Marx: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

7. Wolff, Jonathan, 2002, Why Read Marx Today?, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 

Optional reading

1. Pyper, Hugh, 2011, The Joy of Kierkegaard: Essays on Kierkegaard as a Biblical Reader, Sheffield & Oakville: Equinox.

2. Podmore, Simon D., 2011, Kierkegaard and the Self Before God: Anatomy of the Abyss, Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indian University Press.

3. Emden, Christian J., 2008, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

4. Janaway, Christopher, 2007, Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche's Genealogy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

5. Lemm, Vanessa, 2009, Nietzsche's Animal Philosophy: Culture, Politics and the Animality of the Human Being. New York: Fordham University Press.

6. Mabille, Louise, 2009, Nietzsche and the Anglo-Saxon Tradition. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.

7. Rampley, Matthew, 2007, Nietzsche, Aesthetics and Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

8. Shaw, Tamsin, 2007, Nietzsche's Political Skepticism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Note

Texts online

1. Works by thinkers at Project Gutenberg

2. Works by or about thinkers at Internet Archive

Audio

Works by or about thinkers at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

Video

Video reels, video texts on all philosophical issues at http://www.youtube.com

 

Seminar 1.

1. The philosophy as a unity of knowledge and wisdom.

2. The philosophy as a self-consciousness of culture.

3. Philosophy, science, art and morality.

 

Seminar 2.

1. Features of Eastern philosophy in the comprehension of the world and man.

2. The philosophy of the Upanishads.

3. The problem of man and the state in the philosophy of Confucianism.

4. Man and Space in the philosophy of Taoism.

Seminar 3.

1. Conceptual thinking: from natural philosophy to Parmenides.

2. Atomism of Democritus as the pinnacle of Greek natural philosophy.

3. From the philosophy of nature to human philosophy: sophistry, Socrates.

4. The world of ideas of Plato and the doctrine of Aristotle.

3. Hellenistic-Roman philosophy: cynicism, skepticism, stoicism and neo-platonism.

Seminar 4.

1. Scholasticism and its off-shoots: thomism and scotism. Scholastic method.

2. Main problems of medieval philosophy in the works of St. Augustine and Th. Aquinas.

3. Al-Ghazali and his refutation of the philosophers.

4. Sufism: the selfless experiencing and the actualization of the truth.

Seminar 5.

1. Undermining the monopoly of the church and emergence of the secular culture.

2. The mystical pantheism of Nicholas of Cusa.

3. Natural philosophy of G. Bruno and Copernican revolution.

4. Machiavellism and utopian thought.

Seminar 6.

1. The priority of epistemology and methodology in modern philosophy.

2. Scientific and rationalist paradigm and the "war of all against all".

3. Nature, society, people in the philosophy of the Enlightenment.

4. Voltaire: Common sense, religious tolerance, freedom of thought.

 

Seminar 7.

1. The antinomies of the human mind and the agnosticism of Kant.

2. The parallelism between the development of nature and the development of knowledge in philosophy of Schelling.

3. The problem of the alienation of the human essence in the philosophy of Feuerbach.

4. "Capital": goods as alienated result of alienated labor.

 

Seminar 8.

1. Voluntarism and pessimism of the philosophy of Schopenhauer

2. Irrationalism and existentialism of S. Kierkegaard.

3. Immoralism and individualistic character of Nietzsche’s philosophy.

Seminar 9.

1. A. Camus’ man of absurdity as an expression of alienated consciousness.

2. Fundamental ontology of M. Heidegger.

3. E. Husserl: phenomenological reduction.

4. The emergence of hermeneutics: the attempt of overcoming of alienation.

5. The culmination of the exclusion and decline of civilization in postmodern philosophy.

 

Seminar 10.

1. Phenomenon akyn-zhyrau in Kazakh culture.

2. Sufi ideas in the works of Abai and authentic human existence in the philosophy Shakarim.

3. Existentialism of F. Dostoyevski, L. Shestov and N. Berdyaev.

4. Russian cosmism and Russian eurasianism.

Seminar 11.

1. The philosophical content of concepts "being", "non-being" and "nothing".

3. Classical and non-classical understanding of being.

4. Matter and its attributive properties: the problem of the finite and the infinite.

Seminar 12.

1. The problem of development in the history of philosophy.

2. Determinism and indeterminism.

3. Dialectics and modern scientific thinking.

Seminar 13.

1. Science as a form of cultural production.

2. Positivistic ideal of science.Scientific traditions and scientific revolution.

3. Consciousness and reflection: language, speech and thinking.

4. Consciousness, preconscious, unconscious.

Seminar 14.

1. The theory of social progress: summative and substantial approaches.

2. Classical and non-classical interpretation of human being.

3. Contradictions of humanism, freedom, the meaning of life, fate and predestination of man.

Seminar 15.

1. Culture as "intermediate state" between barbarism and civilization.

2. The idea of enclosed cultural-historical types and the theory of enclosed local cultures.

4. Civilization and culture in the concept of “axial time”.

5. Universal and national values in the conditions of globalization.

Methodical recommendations of lectures topics on course “Philosophy”

The course “ Philosophy ” includes two parts, first the history of philosophy, then the problems of ontology, epistemology, axilogy, social philosophy. The following tips are intended to help students master the course content.

Learning outcomes

1. An understanding of some of the problems and issues addressed in philosophy and of the most important answers to these problems and issues.

2. Critical thinking and analytical abilities, and the ability to use these skills to develop oral and written arguments about philosophical problems.

Required Readings: Almost every lecture will have some ‘required reading’, usually from one of the two text books and primary sources. Students find learning easier and the course more enjoyable if they read the required readings before the relevant lectures.

Optional Readings: The optional readings include authors that take a wide range of approaches to philosophy. If you find one secondary source author hard to understand, there is probably an alternative author on the list who will suit you better.

Many relevant works are listed here, and many other useful books and articles are available online.

Dictionaries of philosophy are available electronically. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy has many useful, introductory articles.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/ is a freely accessible, peer-reviewed, high quality encyclopedia, but can be more difficult to read than Routledge.

Wikipedia, blogs, and random web postings provide useful examples and background reading, but only use peer-reviewed books, articles, and encyclopaedia entries for serious research for essays.

Making a Point

Start moving towards the idea of a journal article. The point of a journal article is to convince people of a point; it is not to cover the ground. So take your question, and argue for a particular answer to it. Reading and understanding is necessary for the answer to be mature and not half-baked, but don't try to summarize the reading.

Style

The general stylistic principle is: don't hide! Here are some particular applications of that principle:

• Don't fill up the pages with irrelevant stuff (history, biography, overlong quotation), trying to avoid facing the issue: work out what's difficult about an issue, and try to deal with it.
• Don't try to skate quickly over an argument, in the hope that nobody will notice that it's no good: lay out the steps as clearly as you can, so that it will be obvious if it is no good-and then make sure it's not no good.
• Don't use words you don't really understand, in the hope that you'll get some ill-understood credit from them: work out what you think, in your own terms.
• Don't get autobiographical (“Personally, I feel...”), in the hope that at least nobody will deny that this is what you feel: try to produce arguments which will convince anyone (or anyone reasonable).

In short: make sure your argument is good enough to stand, without concealment or adornment.

Two things about level and who to be writing for:

• Don't write just for the person you expect to mark the essay.
• Write as if for one of your peers who just happen not to have dealt with this topic.

Plagiarism

You shouldn't even get close to plagiarism. You will have an extremely unpleasant time if you're caught plagiarizing. If a substantial proportion of the essay is plagiarized, it will receive a zero grade. Just argue, for yourself, for an answer to the question.

 

Developer ___________ Bozzhigitova M.M.

Commission of the Faculty

___________

Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan