Philosophy 101 : No Bakvas
An Ashoka University online course for high-school students.
Faculty
Course Dates
23 May – 3 June
Price
INR 12,000 + GST
Timings
5 to 7pm
About The Course
“Philosophy: a bunch of old men who keep rambling endlessly—often unintelligibly—about the meaning of life and other dull topics, while making zero progress. It’s a mere exchange of opinions, a huge waste of time!”
People sometimes say this or something similarly dismissive about philosophy. Others refer to it in a hushed voice, vaguely reverentially, and say things like: “Philosophy is both very important and very deep [ominous rolling of the eyes]. It certainly goes way over my head.”
Is philosophy just complicated, way-over-your-head stuff or, worse even, utterly useless nonsense (bakvās)? Should you be interested in it? As you will discover in this course, philosophers, rather than producing more bakvās [of which there appears to be plenty anyway] try rather hard to get rid of it. How? By struggling to achieve a clear understanding of how things hang together. What kind of things? All of them! What counts as kind of thing, you ask? Excellent question!
Frequently, philosophers tackle issues that sound innocuous, naïve even, but are hard to answer: How is the world structured? How can we know about …anything, really? What should we do? How are we to evaluate the significance and the role of activities such as science, art, religion, and other ways of finding [or producing?] value?
Clearly, the number of philosophical subdisciplines by far exceeds what we could cover. In this course, we focus on a selection of exciting topics from contemporary philosophy drawn from very different areas. You will get a taste of how various philosophers tick [they don’t all tick to the same tune], understand how broad the discipline really is, recognize that philosophical claims shape the conceptual foundation of every other discipline, and thus understand how closely related philosophy is both to other fields of inquiry and to everyday thinking. If things go well, you will enjoy getting flabbergasted about how shaky various claims are that you have always taken for granted and sharpen your reasoning skills along the way.
Apply for Horizons Summer 2022
Course Faculty
Raja Rosenhagen
Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh
Raja Rosenhagen is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Ashoka University. He earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy in 2018 from the University of Pittsburgh. He also holds an M.A. from the University of Münster in Philosophy, Indian Studies, and Psychology. Raja’s interests are broad and include Philosophy of Mind (especially Perception), Metaphysics and Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, History of Philosophy, Logic, Philosophy of Love, and Indian Philosophy. He is currently working on a few essays in epistemology and philosophy of mind as well as on a book that ties together pretty much all his interests. Since 2019, Raja has been serving as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Ashoka University and has also recently taken on the role of Head of the Department of Philosophy.
Horizons Course Objectives
Discover Your Interest and Aptitude
Go Deep Into Specific Disciplines
Learn with Amazing Peers from Schools across India
Explore Unique Perspectives and Ideas
Develop New Skills and Abilities
Learning Support for the Course
MaryAnne Rodrigues
Teaching Assistant
MaryAnne Rodrigues – Teaching Assistant
MaryAnne is a third-year Philosophy major. Her research interests include, but are not limited to, political and social philosophy and ethics. At present, she serves as one of the Student Representatives of the Philosophy department and is working on an undergraduate thesis on Moral Laziness. In her spare time, she enjoys illustrating, language learning and reading more underrepresented voices in Philosophy. She has found learning Philosophy at Ashoka, both as a student and as a teaching assistant, to be intellectually challenging, personally rewarding and an absolute joy. This is her second time being a Teaching Assistant for this course and she can’t wait to learn from and with all of you!
Arya Amritansu
Teaching Assistant
Arya Amritansu – Teaching Assistant
