Philosophy

This introductory course examines music and philosophy as intersecting practices through which human beings give meaning to the world around them. By exploring philosophy through music and music through philosophy from cross-cultural perspectives, the course looks at the variety of ways that knowledge, existence, religion, ethics, politics, culture, and sound converge.

This course provides students with a critical understanding of current and emerging ethical concerns in relation to the internet, big data, artificial Intelligence, and robotics, including issues such as privacy, online identity and relationships, and the role of robots in society. Philosophical reflection of core ethical concepts underlie the discussion of emerging concerns in the field. 

Students study aspects of Plato’s ethics, epistemology, moral psychology, political philosophy, meta-ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion. They are studying parts of three dialogues: the Protagoras, the Theaetetus, and the Republic. The first two dialogues engage with a position that Plato found deeply unsettling: relativism. Protagoras’ relativism not only encompasses ethics and politics, but also pertains to epistemology and even metaphysics. In both domains, appearance is given a much stronger role than we would expect. The Republic contains a sustained argument to combat the ills of relativism and unenlightened self-interest by developing the blue-print of “the philosopher” whose understanding of the forms enables him or her to navigate the ship of state successfully towards the good.

This course presents world view, values, outlook on life, morality and the concept of the rule of law, to analyze and solve problems. The course provides understanding of the essence of the socialist rule of law system and the rule of law path with Chinese characteristics, to enhance the awareness of the rule of law, to develop the rule of law, to better exercise their legal rights and to fulfill their legal obligations.