Philosophy @ UB
Philosophy is the discipline that tackles the most basic and perhaps the most
important questions about life, knowledge and values, including the big questions about
us and our existence:
• What does it mean to be human? Are people all basically the same? Or are men and women radically different?
Or people in different cultures?
• How are our minds and our bodies related? What
is thinking? Could machines or non-human animals think in the way that we
do? How would we know?
• Are we free? If all of our actions can be
explained in terms of causation, does this mean that we aren't free? If we're not free, why should we take responsibility for our actions?
• Could we ever prove the existence of something
beyond us such as God? How might we do this?
• Can we ever know the truth about the world?
Indeed, is there a single truth about the world? Can science show us this
truth? What if it can't?
• What is the best possible form of society? Who
should be the rulers? Why should they be the rulers? What should be the
laws? What makes the laws lawful? Why are obligated to follow the law?
• How ought we to live? Are there some things that are just wrong for everyone?
Can we ever be sure that we are doing the right thing? How would we know?
If you've ever asked questions like this, you've already begun to do
philosophy. Further, as you start to delve deeper into philosophical thinking,
you're taking part in a conversation that started well over two thousand years
ago and which is still going strong. Overall, philosophical thinking
concentrates on the kind of abstract and perplexing questions that have always engaged thoughtful people, while
coming up with new ways of formulating and answering them. Finally,
philosophical studies will develop your capacity for critical reflection and
clear and logical argument; and they help you develop the kind of flexibility of thinking, both disciplined and imaginative, that is in demand both inside and outside the university.
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