PHL 3305 Logic and Nature
In this course, seminarians undertake a study of traditional logic, especially in its connection to philosophical reflection on nature. Logic is approached as a liberal art - in fact, as "the art of arts and the "rational science", as Thomas Aquinas says, insofar as logic "directs us in the activity of reason, from which all the arts proceed." An essential goal of the course is to habituate seminarians to think and to speak well in accordance with reason's three principal acts: simple apprehension, judgment, and argumentation. Topics to be covered include definitions and their parts, propositions, the square of opposition, syllogisms, and fallacies. Since the proper object of the human intellect is the essence of physical realities, a second essential goal is to familiarize seminarians with basic notions and distinctions that arise from a philosophical investigation of the physical world, guided by the thought of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. This introduction to natural philosophy gives special attention to the following: the ten categories; the principles of nature and hylomorphism; the four causes and teleology; motion, place and time; and the distinction between a nature and a person. Fall offering.
Offered
Fall