Program :

Baccalaureate in Philosophy

Semester :

S2

Credits :

3

Teacher :

Rev. Dr Madathisseril Sebastian

Aim

The proposed course aims to impart a coherent picture about the value and meaning of the natural world. To achieve this end, at first, an exploration from a mythical (pre-scientific) view of the nature to the present-day understandings of the origin of the universe is undertaken. Then, a detailed analysis of Aristotelian and Newtonian cosmologies is done. A thorough philosophical investigation and analysis of the notions such as space, time, matter, motion, and energy etc. are done in detail. In short, the course entitled Philosophyof Nature functionsas a preparatory course to Anthropology and Metaphysics.

References

  1. Frank Thilly, A History of Philosophy, SBW Publishers, New Delhi, 2005.
  2. Wallace, William A., The Modelling of Nature. Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Nature in Synthesis, Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996.
  3. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2006.
  4. Michael W. Tkacz and Albert E. Gunn, “From Myth to Modern Mind. A Study of the Origins and Growth of Scientific Thought, Volume I: Theogony through Ptolemy. Volume II Copernicus through Quantum Mechanics” in The Review of Metaphysics, Vol.52, No.2, 1998.
  5. Richard R. Buxton (ed.), From Myth to Reason?: Studies in the Development of Greek Thought, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999.
  6. Gregory Vlastos, Plato’s Universe, Parmenides, Las Vegas, NV, 2005.
  7. Thomas L. Heath, Greek Astronomy, J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London, 1932.
  8. Daniel W. Graham, Explaining the Cosmos: The Ionian Tradition of Scientific Philosophy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2006. Plato, Timaeus, Eng. Trans. Benjamin Jowett in ‘Great Books of the Western World’Vol. 6, Mortimer J. Adler (ed.), Encyclopaedia Britannica, INC, Chicago, 1992