Philosophy

Language

French

Main themes

The different aspects of human society studied within the Faculty (Economics and Management, Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science and Communication) can only reasonably be studied within the framework of a comprehensive approach to the issue of "What is man?". It is this comprehensive approach that is provided by the Philosophy course. For this reason, Philosophy will be taught as a partially constitutive dimension of issues in the Social Sciences and not as a specialized discipline, separate from the Human and Social Sciences. This course deliberately chooses not to use the examine the same basic concepts as the specialist Philosophy courses given later on in the degree course and in a range of Masters' courses, concepts related for example to epistemology in the Social Sciences, Ethics, Political Philosophy and Philosophy of Communication. Given the availability of these later specialized courses, this first year Bachelor's course will adopt a general perspective, introducing students to a particular way of questioning and a body of specific references.
This Philosophy course is particularly intended to equip students (who will never, within the Belgian system at least, have had any specific teaching in Philosophy and the history of Philosophy) with a basic grounding in the history of Philosophy. This history is not studied as an end in its own right, nor is it studied chronologically, but instead provides information which should enable students to situate in time the various answers which have been given to the key question on which the entire course is based: "What is man?".

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1.	be equiped with the knowledge they need to examine issues raised within the disciplines taught in the Faculty within a philosophical perspective ;
2.	be showned how the philosophical approach to these issues operates within a conceptual framework which combines ontological, epistemological, ethical and aesthetic considerations ;
3.	have the knowledge they need to describe, in outline at least, how these questions entered into the history of western Philosophy.

Faculty or entity

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