Course Co-ordinator: Dr R Re Manning

Pre-requisite(s): None.

Note(s): This course will be available in 2012/13 as PH 352T / PH 452T.

This course studies the major problems of religious metaphysics as they have been handed down to contemporary philosophy of religion from the Enlightenment era. Taking Kant's Critique of Pure Reason as its starting point, it first provides a close, critical examination of Kant's own reworking of the notions of God and soul, and of his rejection of the classical arguments for God's existence. It then provides a systematic account of the major responses to, or evasions of, Kant's challenge in the 20th and 21st centuries amongst those philosophers of religion who have sought either to repristinate theological metaphysics, or to give philosophical credence to God talk by means of other, post metaphysical, strategies of defence.

Level 3: 1 one and a half-hour lecture and 1 one and a half-hour tutorial per week.

Level 4: 1 one and a half-hour lecture and 1 one and a half-hour student-led seminar per week.
(Thus, each student will have 3 contact hours per week.) Tutorials/seminars begin in week 2.

1st Attempt: Level 3: one 2,500 word essay (50%) and 1 two-hour exam (50%).

1st Attempt: Level 4: one 3,500 word essay (50%), 1 two-hour exam (40%) and a seminar presentation (10%).

Resit: Level 3; 1 two-hour exam (100%).

Resit: Level 4; No resit for Level 4 students.