# History of Philosophy syllabi for Rich



## RamistThomist (Jun 17, 2007)

A few weeks ago Rich mentioned he was looking for the corresponding syllabi to Bahnsen's course on Philosophy. Well, I didn't find that. But I did find this by Frame, which is close enough and a handy reference nonetheless.

http://reformedperspectives.org/search.asp/keyword/PTphil/category/pt

Scroll down till you see the relevant part.

I hope others can use this with profit as well.


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## Semper Fidelis (Jun 17, 2007)

Wow, that's a handy reference on the History of Epistemology. I've thought about getting the History of Western Philosophy in 5 volumes that Bahnsen uses but I kind of really wanted a handy reference.

I've even tossed around the idea of creating a Philosophers section in the Apologetics area that is kind of a snapshot of major thinkers or schools of thought that summarized what they believed. It could be an article per philosopher or school of philosophy and be a kind of Wiki dealie from a Christian perspective.


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## polemic_turtle (Jun 17, 2007)

You can get W. T. Jones very inexpensively if you buy used. I got all of mine for no more than an average of $10 each.


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## Semper Fidelis (Jun 17, 2007)

Yeah, thanks Tyler. I thought about that but they're awfully big to lug around.


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## Puritan Sailor (Jun 17, 2007)

_Philosophy and the Christian Faith_ by Colin Gunton is a helpful reference tool. I read it before seminary to introduce me to alot of the philosophers and schools and found it a great review. And it's not too big a volume either. About 300 pages.


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## B.J. (Jun 21, 2007)

This was helpful for me, Rich. http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/index.html


I bought the book at Barnes and Noble and it offers a laymen's understanding to major thinkers. That is it cuts out the jargon that said philosophers use to capture their own distinct philosophies.


I also have all of Bahnsen's lectures on Philosophy. They are well worth the money. Ecspeacially if you are going to take any classes at a secular university.


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## RamistThomist (Jun 21, 2007)

Puritan Sailor said:


> _Philosophy and the Christian Faith_ by Colin Gunton is a helpful reference tool. I read it before seminary to introduce me to alot of the philosophers and schools and found it a great review. And it's not too big a volume either. About 300 pages.



Colin Gunton or Colin Brown?


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## Greg (Jun 21, 2007)

Rich, is this what you were looking for?


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## Semper Fidelis (Jun 21, 2007)

Greg said:


> Rich, is this what you were looking for?



Yes! That's the outline he's referring to in his lectures repeatedly. Thanks for finding that.

I'll have to put that together with some other resources. I'm really not interested in becoming an expert in philosophy. From an apologetic standpoint, however, it would be nice to have a "tickler file" where I can hear an argument from a man and detect the broad category he falls under.

For instance, I'm reading Van Til's "A New Modernism..." where he critiques the Critical approach to the Word that Barth and Brunner used. I had read a bunch of Barth stuff prior that that this past year because I'm trying to understand neo-Orthodoxy. It was actually Bahnsen's lectures and, finally, this book by Van Til that is helping me to understand how men, committed to a dialetical approach to Truth, can take a verse on the face of it and completely twist the Word. Talk about a sophisticated suppression of the Truth! What is frustrating is that, unless you understand their philosophy, they sound like Gurus spouting nonsensical aphorisms about the "No" of God. Of course, after you understand them, you're even more convinced that their words are vaccuous and foolish. Van Til has a way of using metaphors that show the men to be foolish (which is why this work is despised I'm guessing) but he also has a habit of writing in a way that assumes you know philosophy ahead of time. I'm glad I hadn't cracked this book until after I had heard Bahnsen on Kant, Hegel, and Kierkegard.

I think it would be priceless to have a WIKI-type repository where only Reformed folk, studied in philosophy, could take all the schools of thought on the attached outline and create a summary on the metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics of each thinker and then a brief critique on how the Christian worldview differs. I could set something like that up but I'm not sure there would be enough interest for Reformed thinkers to contribute.


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## Greg (Jun 21, 2007)

SemperFideles said:


> I'm really not interested in becoming an expert in philosophy. From an apologetic standpoint, however, it would be nice to have a "tickler file" where I can hear an argument from a man and detect the broad category he falls under.



I've been listening to this lecture series by Bahnsen and he addresses this very thing at one point. When confronted by other belief systems, it's not essential to have every single detail of that belief system memorized (though you should be familiar with the basics), as each belief system will basically fall under one of three general/broad categories of an underlying philosophy. The three catagories that he presented were:

1) Spiritual monism -claims there is only one kind of reality, and that is the spiritual (Hinduism, Hare Krishnas, etc...)

2) Dualism -two types of realities: mind and matter or spirit and body, of which there are two subdivisions: Idealism and stoicism.

3) Material atomism -claims there are an infinite number of bits of reality, but are composed of matter only, there is no spiritual reality. There are two main subdivisions here as well: determinism and hedonism. 

Two additional categories that were mentioned, basically as a subset of material atomism, were: pragmatism and scepticism.

These do not cover every school of philosophy that has come along, but rather are basic types of worldviews of which all belief systems are a variety of in some shape or form.

By understanding these broad categories, and also by knowing how to do an internal critique of each one, you can quickly catagorize the belief system of the other person and know how to apologetically approach them without having to know evey nuance of what they believe.



> I think it would be priceless to have a WIKI-type repository where only Reformed folk, studied in philosophy, could take all the schools of thought on the attached outline and create a summary on the metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics of each thinker and then a brief critique on how the Christian worldview differs. I could set something like that up but I'm not sure there would be enough interest for Reformed thinkers to contribute.



I think that's a great idea!


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## Semper Fidelis (Jun 21, 2007)

Greg said:


> I've been listening to this lecture series by Bahnsen and he addresses this very thing at one point. When confronted by other belief systems, it's not essential to have every single detail of that belief system memorized (though you should be familiar with the basics), as each belief system will basically fall under one of three general/broad categories of an underlying philosophy. The three catagories that he presented were:
> 
> 1) Spiritual monism -claims there is only one kind of reality, and that is the spiritual (Hinduism, Hare Krishnas, etc...)
> 
> ...



Roger that Greg. I'm pretty good at detecting the broad categories but specifics are sometimes useful too. Nietzche is in vogue right now, for instance, and knowing a few specifics of his thought helps you to see when some guy is parroting him. Also, if I hadn't listened to Bahnsen's presentation of Kant, Hegel, and Kierkegard then Van Til's book I'm reading would have been much more obscure. I'm more comfortable understanding Barth's restriction of knowledge to the phenomenal as well as his principal of the Individual.


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