PHIL528 CONTEMPORARY NATURALISTIC PHILOSOPHIES OF HUMAN NATURE
| Course Code: | 2410528 |
| METU Credit (Theoretical-Laboratory hours/week): | 3 (0.00 - 0.00) |
| ECTS Credit: | 8.0 |
| Department: | Philosophy |
| Language of Instruction: | English |
| Level of Study: | Graduate |
| Course Coordinator: | Prof.Dr. ŞEREF HALİL TURAN |
| Offered Semester: | Fall and Spring Semesters. |
Course Objectives
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Nature or Nurture? This question about human nature or being human is quite ancient, but this course offers a critical examination of recent debates about this question that involves philosophy and sciences from biology to anthropology (physical and cultural), evolutionary and cognitive psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, and so on.
COURSE OBJECTIVES: At the end of this course, students will have learned,
Fundamental scientific and philosophical issues about human nature, such as evolution-culture and human nature, genetic determinism, innateness, human universals, where thinking, knowledge, values, etc. come from.
PRE-REQUISITIES: The course is intended for graduate students from all departments. There are no prerequisites but interest in topics related with the problem of human nature is obviously quite valuable.
Course Content
This course offers a critical examination of some of the modern philosophies that either denies human nature (for instance, the blank-slate view of modern empiricism and their twentieth century versions) or accounts of human nature in terms of immaterial/transcendent soul with certain intellectual and moral imprints from a naturalistic perspective that proposes naturalistic theories of human nature. The course starts with a survey of the above-mentioned non-naturalistic theories and naturalism in philosophy and then continues with a critical defense of contemporary naturalistic theories of human nature based on advances in biology and cognitive sciences. In relation to the human nature problem several other issues are also examined, such as ethics, politics, gender, violence, education, arts.
Course Learning Outcomes
Student, who passed the course satisfactorily will be able to understand fundamental scientific and philosophical issues about human nature as described under "Course Objectives".
Program Outcomes Matrix
| Level of Contribution | |||||
| # | Program Outcomes | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 1 | Do independent academic research in order to be successful in academic studies. | ✔ | |||
| 2 | Have knowledge about contemporary philosophical issues, concepts and problems. | ✔ | |||
| 3 | Make original philosophical interpretations on the topic specialized. | ✔ | |||
| 4 | Have verbal and written presentation and effective communication skill. | ✔ | |||
| 5 | Do interdisciplinary readings and associate them to philosophical problems. | ✔ | |||
| 6 | Have knowledge about ethical code which is a requirement for doing academic research and publishing it. | ✔ | |||
0: No Contribution 1: Little Contribution 2: Partial Contribution 3: Full Contribution