First year philosophy 2024 will be a series of six sections (three in semester one and three in semester two) each of which will be taught by a different member of the Rhodes Philosophy staff. The idea is to introduce our first year students to an array of approaches to philosophical discourse and, indeed, to different understandings of what philosophy is. In general, Philosophy 101 (PHI101) and Philosophy 102 (PHI102) introduce students to philosophical ideas, issues and methods via topics in metaphysics, epistemology and ethics from a range of philosophical traditions. 

Philosophy 101

Entrance Requirements: None
The course bears 15 credits at NQF Level 5.

DP requirements: at least 40% for course work.
Assessment: Coursework 60%; June exam 40%.

Philosophy 102 

Entrance Requirements: None
The course bears 15 credits at NQF Level 5.

DP requirements: at least 40% for course work.
Assessment: Coursework 60%; June exam 40%.

2024 COURSE OFFERINGS FOR PHILOSOPHY 101

The semester will be divided into three sections, each taught by a different member of the department, each focusing on a theme suitable for introducing students to the activity of philosophy. Students will take all three courses.

Section I: What is the right thing to do?

Prof Tom Martin

This module provides a brief introduction to moral philosophy (also known as ethics). Moral philosophy is concerned with what we must or must not do in situations involving ourselves and other people. We will consider a number of examples of situations requiring moral decisions, along with two different theories that might provide us with guidance on what the right thing to do is.

Section II: What is a Person?

Dr Lindokuhle Gama

From the vantage point of African philosophy, in this course we will answer the question ‘what is a person?’ The aim of the course is to attempt an African rendering of the fundamental assumption, made popular by the Nguni phrase umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, that one is not born a person but becomes a person. Surveying the work of canonical thinkers in the Afro-personhood tradition such as Ifeanyi Menkiti and Kwame Gyekye we will critically investigate how African thinkers have attempted to answer this question. In so doing, the student should be able to answer questions of what achieving a virtuous moral character entails; what kind of moral status persons hold in African communities and how African persons can attain a meaningful life.

Section III: Personal Identity and Survival

Dr Tess Dewhurst

The question of personal identity is metaphysical: what does it take for someone to continue to exist from one time to another? Does someone survive if they have total amnesia? Does someone survive even if they are in a vegetative state? Would someone survive if they were teleported from one place to another? If brain transplants were possible, would the person whose brain it is continue to exist, but in another body? Or would the new host survive, but with a new brain? Could my thoughts be uploaded onto a computer, and I survive as a machine? Can we survive death? What these thought experiments test is what we consider our identity to be. What is it that makes me me over time? In this four week course we will consider some of these thought experiments in relation to the question of identity. The point is not to come to a conclusive answer, but to practice philosophy, which is to consider arguments, reason carefully and hopefully thereby gain some insight into the nature of our identity.

2024 COURSE OFFERINGS FOR PHILOSOPHY 102

Like semester 1, this semester will also be divided into three sections, each taught by a different member of the department, each focusing on a theme suitable for introducing students to the activity of philosophy. Students will take all three courses.

Section I: Race, Culture, and Family Obligations

Prof Ward E. Jones

One characteristic aim of philosophical work is to organize our thinking about (or theorize) our everyday practices. The topic of this course is family obligations, a practice whose meaning is contested in contemporary South Africa. In recent years, some black South Africans have described their (often extensive) family financial obligations as ‘black tax’, a continuing source of racial inequality, while others have condemned this description of the badly needed support which they provide for loved ones. We begin by reading five brief reflections by black South Africans on their family obligations, selected from the collection Black Tax (2019). In the remaining three weeks, we engage with four philosophical readings which theorize issues central to this disagreement: (i) the nature and source of family obligations; (ii) African views of ethics and identity; (iii) racial (and class) structural inequality; and (iv) black consciousness.

Section II: What Makes Us Think?

Sabelo Ndwandwe

This part of the course will further introduce students into what Hannah Arendt described as “The Life of the Mind”, the title of posthumous study of thinking. In the very beginning, Arendt tells us that her impulse into thinking about thinking (and other mental activities such as willing and judging) came from the bitter lessons of totalitarianism in Europe that expose her to ‘banality of evil’ which differed from how traditions of thought -be it, literal, theological or philosophic -have explained the phenomenon of evil. The former led her to consider whether the problem of good and evil, our faculty for telling right from wrong, might be connected with our faculty of thought? In this course we will follow her inquiry into the what, why, and where of thinking while paying particular attention to her argument about the centrality of thinking to ethics.

Section III: What is Philosophical Inquiry?

Dr Laurence Bloom

What, if anything, makes a philosophical inquiry “philosophical”? Does it even mean anything to say that we are thinking about something “philosophically”? In this short course, we will look at one rich and powerful argument advocating one particular account of philosophical inquiry: Socrates’ argument for the examined life in Plato’s Apology of Socrates. We will ask what sort of picture we are getting of the “life of inquiry into virtue” that Socrates is advocating for in the text. What is the content of such a life? What makes it philosophical? Is such a life really the best life for a human being, as Socrates suggests? Then, armed with Socrates’ account, we will turn to consider some everyday life issues that we all have to deal with and see if and how the account helps us to make sense of those issues. If time permits, we will end by reading Nietzsche’s, “The Problem of Socrates.”

Dr Gama is the course coordinator for Philosophy 1

Last Modified: Fri, 05 Jul 2024 14:34:52 SAST