Key facts

Details for course being taught in current academic year
Level 2  -  12 credits  -  autumn term

E-learning links

Study Direct: V7069 (09/10)

Resources

Timetable Link
Reading list
course document/reading list
optional summer reading

Course description

Course outline

When philosophy considers God it often supposes Him to be a peculiar kind of object defined by a number of distinctive properties (such as being the cause-less cause of the world). It then typically examines the reasons one might have for believing in any such entity (‘Proofs for the Existence of God’) and the coherence of the properties themselves. Towards the end of this course we shall ourselves investigate some of these issues; but we will not start there. For a question that is often raised is why any entity defined by such properties should be regarded as divine. What, for example, has the issue of causality got to do with the sacred? So we shall begin our enquiry with a more ‘phenomenological’ approach to God, inquiring into the nature of our sense of the divine.

Preliminary reading: Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy; Paul Tillich, Ultimate Concern; Martin Buber, I and Thou

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, a successful student should be able to:

1. critically engage with of some of the central debates in contemporary philosophy of religion
2. critically engage with of some of the central debates in the history of the philosophy of religion;
3. appreciate the philosophical significance of certain key religious concepts;
4. re-examine the complex relations between faith and reason;
5. understand the significance of reason to belief.

Assessments

Resit mode of assessment

Timing

Submission deadlines may vary for different types of assignment/groups of students.

Weighting

Coursework components (if listed) total 100% of the overall coursework weighting value.

Teaching methods

How to read the week pattern

The numbers indicate the weeks of the term and how many events take place each week.

Contact details

Dr Katerina Deligiorgi

Assess convenor, Convenor
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/philosophy/profile198873.html