Philosophy

This course examines Western European thought from Augustine to the 14th century. Possible topics and authors include: Augustine; Abelard; the influence of Islam; the rediscovery of Aristotle; Aquinas; Scotus; Ockham.

This course focuses on philosophically interesting questions surrounding religion, including such issues as the evidential value of religious experiences and testimony of miracles; the existence of God; and the dependence or independence of morality and meaning on religious foundations.

This course provides philosophical support for understanding the present technological ubiquity and contemporary discourses about technology. It explores topics linked to contemporary technological development, especially its ethical dimensions. 

This course examines study abroad/overseas exchanges, aiming to integrate individual and collective insights for transformative learning. The course draws upon three main student experiences: 1) Pre-Departure (students intending to go on exchange or an equivalent experience) 2) Re-Integration (students returning from exchange or an equivalent experience) and 3) On- Going (incoming exchange students to HKU from overseas). It will first examine the concepts of transformation, experience, and learning, and how they can be integrated from interdisciplinary perspectives (e.g., the metaphor of metamorphosis; the morality of human development; the phenomenology of perception and stereotypes). It will then examine the structures and theories of unfamiliar places, rootedness, mobility, cross-cultural encounters, reciprocity, and service learning in the context of students’ unique identities and experiences. It will conclude with reflections on transformation of the “whole person” as an embodied, transnational process.

In this course, students learn about a number of key topics in the philosophy of mathematics. It ensure students are familiar with the main views such as Platonism, nominalism, logicism, formalism, intuitionism, and structuralism, as well as the main criticisms of each. Students learn about the philosophical significance of Russell’s paradox and Gödel’s incompleteness theorems. From here, they consider topics in the philosophy of mathematical practice, such as the nature of mathematical proofs, the use of diagrams in mathematical reasoning, explanation and understanding in mathematics, mathematical knowledge, and the ethics of mathematics.  

The course explores a selection of puzzles, ideas, arguments, and debates in political philosophy broadly conceived. The specific selection of topics changes every year.

Through lectures/seminars, students will explore the ways in which philosophers have sought to understood and respond to the demands of Christian faith from both within and without that faith.Students will explore the social and psychological context of such faith, and the ways in which one might understand Christian notions of love, purity, devotion and sainthood, amongst others. Students will explore the ways in which some thinkers have seen Christianity as deepening our sense of the human condition whilst others have seen Christianity as degrading of our condition. The course is text based as, in this context, this is one of the best ways in which students can come to a deepened intellectual understanding of the matters under consideration.

This course is an introduction to what is known as formal or mathematical logic, requiring no prior knowledge of philosophy or mathematics. It does not communicate results about logical systems but instead it imparts a skill - the ability to recognize and construct correct deductions and refutations. The course provides a general introduction to both propositional logic and predicate logic. Lectures and detailed handouts provide the central course material; and weekly tutorial groups provide support for students to work through the formal exercises.