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This series is designed to provide interest to anyone who wants to mix the notions of Critical Thinking with those of Philosophy.  Observations, from several philosophical perspectives, will be made with the aim of diving beneath the superficiality of daily life in order to question presumptions.   There is no guarantee that definite answers will be provided. 

Learner Outcomes

Key outcomes include:  

• Thoughts on many key notions of Philosophy in various contexts.
• Formulating thoughtful and relevant questions.
• Evaluating viewpoints.
• Utilising multiple relevant perspectives.
• Questioning day-to-day presumptions.
• Fostering open-mindedness. 

Course Content

Each week begins with a presumption to be questioned.

Week 1: Introduction to Critical Thinking: Reflections on Philosophy.

Date: Monday, the 19th of January. 
Assumption: Critical Thinking is innate. 

• Definition and attributes of Critical Thinking (CT).
• The relation of CT to Philosophy.
• Reflections on what a ‘love of wisdom’ might be.

Week 2: What is Real?

Date: Monday, the 26th of January. 

Assumption: Reality is obvious.

• Rumination on the sound of a tree falling in a forest, unheard.
• Is the ‘self’ real?
• Are you a brain in a vat?  Can you prove that you are not? 

Week 3: The Meaning of Life and Time.

Date: Monday, the 2nd of February.

Assumption: My life is the centre of meaning and time is merely a matter of the functioning of a clock. 

• Rhetorical questions.
• Perspectives on Space.
• Time according to Martin Heidegger and Sue Perkins.  

Week 4: Stoic Philosophers (& Epicurus).

Date: Monday, the 9th of February.

Assumption: People are disturbed by occurrences, not by the views taken about them.

• The Stoic teacher of the young Nero.
• ‘Fate permitting’ or counter arguments to Stoicism.
• Kickback in Epicurus’ Garden.

Week 5: Aesthetics.

Date: Monday, the 16th of February.

Assumption: Contemplation of Art is inessential.

• Cave paintings to the Nazi’s ‘Degenerate Art’.
• Prejudice in the canon of Art History.
• Time, harmony & judgements of taste. 

Week 6: The Problem of Personal Identity.

Date: Monday, the 23rd of February.

Assumption: I know who I am.

• The River of Selves.  Who were you ten years ago?
• Nietzsche: “What gives me the right to speak of an ‘I’...?”  
• Views of self in Cinema.

Week 7: Death.

Date: Monday, the 2nd of March.

Assumption: Death is merely a morbid subject.

• Stoic exercises and other graveyard walks.
• Future possibilities being denied us.
• Herbert Fingarette at 97 years of age.  

Week 8: The Mind-Body Problem.

Date: Monday, the 9th of March.

Assumption: I am different to my body.

• Atoms in their endless game of Billiards.
• Dualism challenged.
• Cioran’s ‘conscious fruit fly’ and who am I?  

Week 9: Does 'Free Will' Exist?

Date: Monday, the 16th of March.

Assumption: I have free will.

• How did ‘you’ get here?
• Volition & desiring what ‘you’ desire and desiring the desire…
• Within Spinoza’s “a certain freedom”, can there be a genuine and laudable humility?    

Week 10: Zen.

Date: Monday, the 23rd of March.

Assumption: Life consists of isolated incidents. 

• Heraclitus & Lao Tzu: all is one (and not).  
• No inherent existence, there is interconnectedness and there can be Being-Time.
• Identity constituting or identity reflecting.  

Dates and time

Mondays 6- 8 pm, 19th January – 23rd of March.

Location

D2.07 at the Management center.

There is no cost to this course.

To register for this course, click on the link below: