Historical Introduction to Philosophy: Basic Concepts

This course is an introduction to concepts and theories without which no student of philosophy can do. These concepts and theories are studied here in their historical lineage, in order to highlight their connections and their evolution as they were developed by key figures of philosophy.

Thus we investigate essential ideas by a limited number of thinkers, starting with Parmenides and ending with Kant. (Great philosophers were born after Kant, but Kant is perhaps the last philosopher who is considered ‘indispensable’ by all contemporary philosophers.) Other names we will meet are: Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume and a few others.

The teacher of this course attempts:

• to introduce the ideas in a very simple and yet precise way
• to classify concepts and theories into a small number of groups, in order to better understand their links
• to show, whenever possible, how philosophy gave rise to modern scientific developments and disciplines

The teacher therefore hopes that this course cannot only serve as an introduction to philosophy for philosophy students, but also for future students of social, human or natural sciences.