The Institute has been granted affiliation with the Philosophical Faculty (No. 932/95/2) and Theological Faculty (No. 164/99) of the Pontifical Urbaniana University by Decrees of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education.
A student who has completed the first four semesters of Philosophy or the first six semesters of Theology, and passed all subjects with an average of at least 70% (for the new students enrolled since September 2006 the required average is 75%) and who has also completed the required number of elective courses and seminars, can be admitted to sit for the Bachelor Degree examination.
A student seeking the Bachelor of philosophy is obliged
to take one semester of Latin and obtain at least a pass grade;
to pay the fees required for the Bachelor examination.
A degree student should not fail two or more compulsory courses per academic year (see G. Academic Assessment no. 13).
NB. Those who do not fulfil the requirements to sit for the Bachelor Degree exam may take the written and oral comprehensive exams only.
Categorical syllogism has its peculiar structure and is governed by eight laws; such laws are to be demonstrated, bearing in mind the diverse extensions of the predicate in the affirmative and the negative proposition. Hypothetical syllogism - which could be conditional, disjunctive (in exclusive as well as in non-exclusive form) and conjunctive - has a completely different structure and an equally different mode of conclusion.
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCES
Modern science no longer relies on mechanistic prejudice in order to explain the phenomena of the inorganic world, but assigns primacy to the whole rather than to the parts. Moreover, research in the organic world - particularly genetic research - shows that the generation of living things does not come about through the material mixture of characters but through the transmission of an instruction - codified in the macromolecules of the DNA - which directs the evolution of the cellular individual.
Even statistical laws enunciate a real necessity (physical in the material world and moral in the human world), which is perfectly described by the calculus of probabilities. Nevertheless, these laws, in the final analysis, are founded on more profound laws which are dynamic in character (or individually deterministic), such that not all the laws can be reduced only to the statistical type.
PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE
Since evident mutations, which cannot all be reduced to mere local motion, are found in bodies, the fundamental non-simplicity of these bodies should be acknowledged, a non-simplicity that is then explained as essential composition starting from a potential principle and an actual principle. It is only in this doctrine that the soul of living things finds its natural place.
The quantitative and qualitative character of bodies appears from the very facts of sensation, which could not arise if there weren't some qualitative heterogeneity or diversity in different quantitative parts. Contrary to what Kant maintained, it is necessary to affirm that the notion of extension - although fully intelligible - is a primary datum of experience, such that it is impossible to construct it a priori, that is, starting from non-extended data.
Space and time absolutely considered, i.e., as empty prerequisite receptacles for bodies, do not exist in reality - which is proven even by the modern theory of relativity. In the same way, distances and local motions have no meaning in empty space. But according to some recent conceptions, the entire universe is full of some kind of particular matter, to which a negative mass should be attributed (Dirac ocean). In this affirmation the postulate of cosmic ether is confirmed, in a new way.
PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
The dynamism of intellective knowledge according to its triple form: abstraction, judgement, reasoning. Various opinions in the explanation of intellective knowledge: Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas, Descartes, Kant, Rosmini. The main characteristics of intellective knowledge.
The will, freedom and love. The notion of the will and its distinction from the appetite (or sensitive impulse). Elements of a free act. Arguments for and against freedom. Principal forms of freedom: psychological, political, social, metaphysical; various species of determinism: social, political, religious, structural. Love as a sentiment and as a virtue.
Self-transcendence, spirituality and immortality. Self-transcendence and its major interpretations: egocentric, philanthropic and theocentric. Self-transcendence as a pointer to spirituality and immortality. The relationship between body and soul.
The human person. The notion of person and the contribution of Christianity to its development. Three major interpretations of personality: ontological (Boethius), psychological (Descartes), intersubjective (Buber, Mounier, and Nédoncelle). The ultimate foundation of personality. The distinction between the individual and the person.
GNOSEOLOGY
Gnoseology is rightly considered an inquiry concerning the values, the possibilities and the limits of human knowledge. Explain therefore the import and the existential relevance of knowledge. Its cosmic, corporeal, historical and social context. The positive values and the negative aspects of the story of human knowledge.
The critical problem: the question about truth and the critical basis of certainty. The different opinions in this area: elements in ancient Indian philosophy (the Upanishads) and Chinese philosophy (Mohtze); the skeptical position; the Cartesian and the Kantian methods, the Neoscholastics (1840-1940). Critical "reflection": "transcendental" reflection. The immanence of criticality in the intellective act (St. Thomas, De veritate, q. 1, arts. 1-9).
Relevance and limits of sensible knowledge. Theoretical task and existential function of the intelligence (the link between reason and existence). Word, discourse, concept. Empirical concepts and categorical concepts. The capacity of the human intellect with regard to "metaphysical" notions (God, absolute). Theoretical primacy and existential primacy of faith.
Truth and non-truth (or the limits of truth), error in knowledge and in the human condition. Chronological and geographical universality of truth. The relevance of and the esteem for truth in history, in the genius, in the culture and the psychology of nations as well as in the philosophical and ethico-religious doctrines of different peoples.
METAPHYSICS
Metaphysics is the science of being as being. The method of metaphysics: consideration of being as founded on the act of being, which is the perfection of perfections and the inner and primary foundation of everything. Notion of being. The transcendental properties of being : unity, truth, goodness, and beauty. The principle that immediately follows the concept of being, that is, the principle of non-contradiction. Other first principles.
The metaphysical constitutive structure of being. Substance and accident. Act, potency and its grades. The principle of individuation of being: matter marked by quantity. The real composition of essence and act of being in being by participation. The distinction between "suppositum" and nature.
Causality. The four causes and their mutual connection. The end (or final cause) is the cause of causes. The principle of causality. Causality, participation and analogy. The first Cause and the second causes. Instrumental causality. The concept of action.
NATURAL THEOLOGY
Knowledge of God's existence. The ways through which one can prove the existence of God: the "five ways" of St. Thomas and the other proofs. Traditionalism, fideism, ontologism, and agnosticism. Atheism and its principal forms.
Analogical knowledge of God's nature by affirmation, negation and eminence. The names of God: analogy in the discourse about God. God's total simplicity. Divine essence: God is the self-subsistent Being. The ontological attributes of God: unity, unicity, truth, goodness, beauty, immensity, immutability, infinity, eternity.
Divine action. God's knowledge: God knows all things in himself, even future things that depend on freedom. God's will, his love, and his freedom. The infinite power of God and creation out of nothing. The preservation of creatures in being. Divine providence. Divine action does not destroy but founds human freedom. The cause of evil.
FUNDAMENTAL ETHICS
In the human being who acts morally, there is an end, which, springing from self love, does not consist simply in the transformation of the world, the building of the society or historical progress, but rather in the attainment of the highest Good.
The moral act - which is performed not only according to the demands of the human vocation, but also according to the duties of civil profession - is founded on the objective moral order. This order is expressed through universal norms.
The moral act is also founded on subjective elements. Clarify the notions of violent, spontaneous, voluntary, free. The proximate and the ultimate norm of the moral act is the concrete judgment of moral conscience: explain therefore the content and the different forms of conscience (upright, good, uncertain).
The importance of virtue in the making of the moral person; the cardinal virtues in general, wisdom (or prudence) and justice in particular. The duties of justice and the human vocation to politics. Love, evangelical morality and its universality. Utilitarian ethics; Marxist ethics; the ethics of atheism.
SOCIAL ETHICS
The family. Conjugal love. Indissoluble marriage: philosophical and socio-cultural analysis. Responsible procreation and the interruption of pregnancy. The link between demographical increase and the ecological problem. Work: its relevance and dimensions - existential, moral, theological. Collective work, with special reference to the condition in industries.
The right to property and its social destination. The political community. The civil and social condition of the common good. Person and society. The interaction between political authority and liberty with regard to the single person and different social groups. The concept of democracy, its characteristics and forms. Justice and peace, principal goods of the state. International political community.
HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
The major pre-Socratic philosophers (Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras) and their philosophical problems, especially those concerning the question about being and the first principle of all things.
The controversy between Socrates and the Sophists, with particular reference to the question about the essence of man. Platonic philosophy as the first clear affirmation of a super sensible world. The internal connection between Platonic conceptions and their relationship with the sensible world; the conceptions concerning Platonic "mimesis" and "methexis".
Aristotle's metaphysics: the primacy of the act of being as "ergon", "energeia", "entelecheia"; the doctrine of the soul as the "Prima entelecheia"; the existence of God and his nature as "nous noeseos", "Pure act of being" and "eternal life" according to what is read in Aristotle's affirmations.
HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY
The philosophy of St. Augustine: illustrate the connection between Augustine's thought and Platonic and Neo-Platonic doctrines. Explain Augustinian conception of man in general and in particularly his conception of body and soul, the origin of the soul, illumination of the mind, freedom and immortality (cf. De civitate Dei).
The philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and its sources: the newness of doctrine in relation to Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Avicenna. The doctrine of being, of participation, of analogy. The reciprocal relationship between the body and the soul and the consequences of the Thomistic doctrine with regard to the problem of knowledge: intellective knowledge and its relation with sensitive knowledge.
HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY
The new approach to philosophical problems and the new conception of the world which began in science and culture in the Renaissance; special attention to be paid to Nicholas of Cusa, Campanella, Bruno. The importance of the scientific method in Galileo and Bacon.
The conception of man and nature, inspired above all by rationalistic conceptions in Descartes and Leibniz: The importance of the "monism" of Spinoza and its influence on later philosophy. The empiristic tendency in modern philosophy, especially in Locke and Hume. The confluence of rationalism and empiricism in I. Kant's criticism.
HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY
The evolution of contemporary philosophy against "systematic" philosophy (Hegel) can be reduced to approximately three issues: a) the need to place the historico-political question within a more productive light; b) the need for the search and the foundation of the identity of the person through faith to play their part in existence (Kierkegaard); c) the need for the meaning of the driving force of human life to be directed to some total innovation according to the desires and the criteria of voluntarism (Nietzsche). The doctrines of these authors are to be evaluated.
It seems that contemporary philosophy, due to the impulse of technology and the natural sciences, reduces its task either to a "rigorous" method strictly understood (Husserl), or to an examination of characteristics (Scheler), or to existential hermeneutics (Heidegger and Sartre). Attention should be drawn to some return to or recovery of some metaphysical themes in Jaspers, Heidegger and Marcel.
AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY (only for the oral exam)
Since 70's the application of Philosophy to the African continent has raised up problems related to the definition of Philosophy, the philosophical requirements as well as to the philosophical methods. Explain that philosophical problematic focusing on the use of the symbolic expressions in a continent, wherein illiteracy characterised the major part of its habitants.
Nowadays writers speak of a History of African Philosophy comprising many trends. Present shortly the content of the most important ones, notably Egyptology (Cheik Anta Diop, T. Obenga, H. Olela), Ethno-philosophy (P. Tempels, J. Mbiti, A. Kagame, V. Mulago, Sédar Senghor, Aimé Césaire), Ideological Trend (African Personality, pan-Africanism, Consciencism, African Socialism, National Authenticity, African Humanism), Critical Trend (P. Hountoundji, M. Towa, Elungu P. Elungu), Hermeneutic Trend (Okolo) and Functional Philosophy.