PHI 301: METAPHYSICS (R; HL 45; U3; PO). Nature of metaphysics, meaning and ontology. Examination of metaphysical concepts and problems such as God, person, mind, chance, freewill and determinism, substance.
PHI 302: SYMBOLIC LOGIC (R; HL 60; U4; PO) Detailed study of predicate logic. Formal proof. Methods of establishing invalidity, logic of identity. Definite descriptions. Meta – theory of propositional and predicate logic e.g. proofs of consistency and completeness. Some examples will be given of the application of logic to philosophical problems.
PHI 303: ETHICAL THEORIES (R; HL 45; U3; PO). A study of major historical and contemporary theories of ethics, e.g. Naturalism, Intuition, Emotivism, Prescriptivism and Existentialist Ethics.
PHI 304 PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE (E; HL 45; U3; PO). Basic issues in the philosophy of science, e.g. scientific hypothesis, law and theories, verification and falsification of hypotheses, models, induction and probability, causal and statistical explanations, confirmation, the nature of scientific truth.
PHI 305 SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY (E; HL 45; U3; PO) Major historical and contemporary conceptions and theories in social and political philosophy, e.g. communism, socialism, anarchism. Theories of social contract, and justice. Philosophical treatment of crucial concepts in social and political thought such as society, the state, law and sovereignty.
PHI 306: EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY (C;HL 45; U3; PO) Study of major figures of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. E.g. Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant.
PHI 307: AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY (R; HL 45; U3; PO). Examination of some major philosophical problems in African traditional thought e.g about God, person, mind, destiny, freewill, causes and chance. Models of examination; the scientific and the traditional philosophical presuppositions in traditional medical practice. Knowledge and belief. Religion and metaphysics in African thought.
PHI 308: PHILOSOPHY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCE (E; HL 45; U3; PO). Comparison of the social and natural sciences. Objectivity, law and theories; hypothesis and explanation. Causation and human action, philosophical study of major theories of society, e.g. Functionalism, structuralism, etc.
PHI 309: PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE (E; HL 45; U3; PO). Relation between philosophy and literature. Philosophical study of literature containing ideas significant for ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, etc. Philosophical inquiry into the criteria for evaluating literature.
PHI 311: PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION (E; HL 45; U3; PO). Philosophical scrutiny of religion; analysis of the concepts of God, spirit, eternity, sin, redemption, the sacred, etc. Faith and Reason, examination of arguments for the existence of God. The question of survival and immortality. The problems of evil. Religion and the basis of morality. Mysticism and religion. Nature of religious language.
PHI 312 AESTHETICS (E; HL 45; U3; PO) Study of some of the central problems in the philosophy of arts, e.g. the nature of art and the character of aesthetic experience, the concept of beauty, problems which arise in interpreting and evaluating works of art, significance of changes in fashion, standards of taste, and norms of literary truth in literature, aesthetic judgment, metaphysical status of works of art, concept of imagination.
PHI 313: SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT IN AFRICA (E; HL 45; U3; PO) A study of issues in African social and political thought e.g. the debate on socialism in Africa, the question of violence in contemporary social thought in Africa and the relationship between this and revolution as factors in social change, the challenge of democracy in Africa, and the relationship between science, technology and development. The works of some significant African social thinkers like Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah, Amilcar Cabral and Franz Fanon, to be discussed.
PHI 314 PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE (E; HL 45; U3; PO) A study of the nature of culture and the relationship between it and other aspects of the substructure and the superstructure of the society like the economy, politics and philosophy. The issues of the dynamics of culture; the relationship between culture and liberation, the culture question in African development. Some significant cultural theorists in Africa, like Leopold Seda Senghor, Amilcar Cabral, Wole Soyinka and Ngugi Wa Thiong ‘O to be discussed.
PHI 315: ASIAN PHILOSOPHY (E; HL 45; U3; PO) A survey of Indian and Far Eastern philosophies. The orthodox schools. Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian thought. Zen. Comparison between Asian and Western philosophies. Asian and African thought: similarities and differences.
ADDITIONAL BIGARD COURSES
The following are courses which it pleases Bigard to offer in addition to the courses we offer in strict conformity to the affiliation agreement and to the curriculum of studies of the University of Ibadan. They are selected from the Faculties of Arts, Sciences and Social Sciences of various Universities to enable our students satisfy the compulsory demand to obtain some qualifying units from such Faculties (cf. Prospectus, op. cit., pp. 388-399). The letter B prefixed to some course codes indicates they are Bigard courses.
BPY 301: CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY (ELECTIVE) Abnormal behaviour – diagnosis and approaches to remedies. Methods of personality assessments and evaluation (HL 45; U3; PO).
BSY 302: PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION (ELECTIVE) Methods and principles. Religious experiences. Religious symbols. Faith evolution; conversion and crisis (HL 45; U3; PO).
BPH 301: TRADITIONALIST MOVEMENTS IN AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY (REQUIRED) Ethno-philosophy, historical origin of the terminology, Placid Tempels, and the philosophy of the Bantus, Alexis Kagame, J.S. Mbiti and African time, William Abraham’s mind of the African. Yoruba philosophy of causality (J. Shodipo); Igbo philosophy of Law (Okafor); Igbo metaphysics (Edeh); the book of the Philosophers and the Maxims of Skendes (C.Summer) (HL 45; U3; PO).
BSO 301: SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION (ELECTIVE) Elements and Sociological functions of Religion. Religious influences on the social, economic, educational and political life of a people (HL 45; U3; PO).
BAF 301: AFRICAN TRADITIONAL RELIGION (ELECTIVE) Meaning and aim of worship. Sacred places, vessels, vestments, times and objects; Religious functionaries, symbols, rites and rituals. Rites of passages, Sacrifice, Taboos and Atonements. Ancestors, worship and spirit world (HL 45; U3; PO).
BPH 302: PHILOSOPHY AND THE AFRICAN PREDICAMENT (REQUIRED) The African Predicament. Historical, Political, Religious. Psychological, Psychological dimensions. Western Philosophy before the African predicament. The defense of slavery in Aristole, Aquinas T.M. Montaigne, etc. Modern philosophers and anti-African racism: Hume, Hegel, Locke. Contemporary African Philosopher as a consequence of the African predicament, African Philosophy and the African crisis of identity (HL 45; U3; PO).
BPH 303: THE HERMENEUTICAL CURRENT IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY (REQUIRED) Origin of the current. Theophilus Okere’s critique of ethno-philosophy, philosophy as Hermeneutics: P. Riccoeur, M. Heidegger, H.G. Gadamer, philosophy and nonphilosophy: Hegel, Kant, etc. From Hermeneutics to African philosophy: Nkombe, Kingongo, Okolo, Okonda, Serequebeham (HL 45; U3; PO).
BPH 311: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY (ELECTIVE). Nature and problems of political philosophy, historical development and study of some great ancient, medieval political theories- Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, St. Thomas, Machiavelli and Jean Bodin, Locke, Spinoza, Hegel, Marx, John Stuart Mill (HL 45; U3; PO).
BPH 312: PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION (ELECTIVE) Acquainting the students with the concepts and nature of philosophy and education, contributions of some Philosophers on education like Plato, Locke, Rousseau, F. Froebel, Dewey, Russel, F. Okafor, B. Okolo etc. Some philosophical systems that have influenced great educators e.g. Naturalism or Materialism and Idealism (HL 45; U3; PO).
BPH 313: AFRICAN POLITICAL THEORIES (ELECTIVE) Major African Political Theories – Nkrumah, Azikiwe, Awolowo, Senghor, Nyerere (HL 45; U3; PO).
BST 315: APOSTOLIC VOCATIONS (ELECTIVE) General Notion, Nature of Apostolic vocations and factors affecting them. Priestly vocations, nature, signs, care. Religious consecration and societies of Apostolic life (HL45; U2; PO).