IIT Madras – Humanities and Social Sciences
Department of Humanities & Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
This course aims at an understanding of some of the major ideas of some most important Western
philosophers and thereby understand the philosophical basis of the cultural history of the western world. It will see how the philosophical tradition of the western world has evolved with an emphasis on metaphysical and epistemological issues and later on issues which deal with conceptual problems related to language and linguistic understanding with an examination on certain concepts like truth, objectivity, universality etc. The problems addressed deal with the philosophical attempts in understanding human nature, life and experience. The course will conclude with an examination of the postmodern challenges to concepts like reason and truth and the major responses to these challenges from Habermas and others.