Master’s Course in Theoretical Philosophy

The first semester: Four modules of 7,5 credits each

(This plan below may be subject to small adjustments, and will be completed with more information before the application period has ended.)

Advanced course in the history of philosophy, 1st half of semester: Aristotle on Soul: De anima and the Science of Life

Description of course content: Modern natural science has provided us with a remarkably detailed view of the cosmos, its beginnings, structure and its probable future. However, we still lack a philosophically plausible way of explaining how life and mind emerge from physical matter. In the lack of a detailed account of how such emergence takes place, scholars have gone back to Aristotle’s work to articulate a philosophical worldview in which life and mind are integral ingredients of reality without either reducing life and mind to matter or appealing to pan-psychism or vitalism. An unquestionable classic of such an integrated science of life is Aristotle’s treatise On the Soul (De anima).

In the treatise, Aristotle explains the nature of living beings and their essential life functions in a so-called hylomorphic framework. In accordance with his central metaphysical insight. he maintains that everything that exists needs to exist in a specific way and have its own structuring principles that explain material changes in and around the organism. He explains the general principles of the life of plants, animals and human beings within that general framework.

In this course, we will focus on Aristotle’s treatise On the Soul and its account of life in plants, humans and animals. What does he mean when he says that soul is an actuality of a natural organic body? How is the nature of perception, feeling, self-motion and rational insight explained within his comprehensive science of life? And what is life that can belong to such different living beings as plants or stationary animals on the one hand and fully actual self-understanding god on the other? And how does his account differ from other known explanations of the relation of the mind to the body?

The main reading material for this course consists of Aristotle’s treatise On the Soul. The main translations used for the course are

Translations
Christopher Shields (tr. with comments), Aristotle: De Anima. Oxford University Press, 2016.
C. David Reeve (tr. with introd. and notes), Aristotle: De Anima, Hackett Publishing, 2017.
Fred D. Miller Jr., Aristotle On the Soul and Other Psychological Works, Oxford University Press, 2018.

If you read German, the most legible recent translation is:
Klaus Corcilius (tr. intro and ed.), Aristoteles Über die Seele, De anima: Zweisprachige Ausgabe, Felix Meiner, 2015.

Instructor: Miira Tuominen.

Examination: Assignments/essay.

Advanced Course in Metaphysics/Epistemology, 1st half of semester: The Philosophy of Mathematics. 7,5 credits.

Description of course content: Students are assigned a selection of papers in philosophy of mathematics to read and discuss in a series of seminars. Students may also opt to follow the lectures on the basic level course The Philosophy of Mathematics, 7,5 credits, though these are not mandatory. The exam consists of a short essay which will be geared towards either a metaphysical or an epistemological problem in the philosophy of mathematics.

Instructor: Sebastian Enqvist.

Examination: Essay.

Advanced Course in Philosophy of Science, 2nd half of semester: Empirical and Meta-Empirical Confirmation. 7,5 credits.

Description of course content: The status of well-established scientific theories rests on the fact that their predictions are widely believed to be correct. The process that establishes a theory as trustworthy is called theory confirmation. We call a theory confirmed when we have registered the agreement of some of its predictions with our observations. The question, however, how the link between theory confirmation and trust in the theory’s predictions about future observations can be established has remained a philosophical matter of content until this day. 
In our course, we start by discussing classical perspectives on confirmation by Popper and Hempel, introduce the Bayesian account of confirmation and analyse the problems faced by Bayesian confirmation theory when it comes to explaining trust in scientific theories. We then introduce a meta-empirical level of theory confirmation as a possible solution to these problems and address some difficulties the approach faces. Finally, we have a look at the specific situation in fundamental physics today, where substantial empirical confirmation is often hard to attain and meta-empirical confirmation arguably plays a particularly important role.

Instructors: Richard Dawid.

Examination: Assignments/essay.

Advanced course in theoretical philosophy, 2nd half of semester: Decision theory and Game theory. 7,5 credits.

Description of course content: TBA

Instructors: Anders Schoubye and Orri Stefanson

Examination: Assignments/essay

The student must pass the examinations of the first semester in order to proceed to the second semester.

The second semester: Thesis work (30 credits)

Instructor: Anders Schoubye

The second semester consists of a thesis work (30 credits). The topic is elective but must be approved by the convenor and must fit the research profile of the members of the faculty. A supervisor will be allocated to the student, based on her or his project description. The final grade of the entire course is determined by the grade of the thesis. The exam of the thesis part consists in the thesis itself, a defence of it at a seminar, and an opposition on another student’s thesis at a seminar. It is recommended to study the grading criteria and the guidelines for the thesis.

Since an entire semester is devoted to writing the thesis, the demands are higher than for a bachelor’s thesis, with respect to volume (approximately 40 pages), content, and degree of independence in the writing process. This is reflected in the grading criteria.

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