Course objectives:Analytical philosophy is one of the dominant schools of contemporary academic philosophy, particularly in English-speaking countries. It is founded on the groundbreaking mathematical and linguistic ideas of Gottlob Frege, which were later developed and creatively applied by Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein to answer broader questions about ontology, logic, science, aesthetics, and the mystical, among other philosophical questions.
In this course, we will spend most of our time reading and thoroughly analyzing Frege's masterpiece, 'Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik' ('The Foundations of Arithmetic'), first published in 1884. Following that, we will discuss Russell's paper 'On Denoting' ('On Direct Denoting'), first published in 1905 in the journal Mind and considered by many scholars to be a 'paradigm of philosophy'.
The final part of the course will focus on Wittgenstein's peculiar doctoral dissertation: 'Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung', first published in 1921 as a monograph in the journal Annalen der Naturphilosophie (Annals of Natural Philosophy), and often known by the Latin title of the English translation as 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus', or simply 'Tractatus'.
Target audience for the course:
This course is aimed at lecturers, researchers, graduate students, and anyone interested, but it does not exclude students of other levels.
Class discussions, in principle, do not require in-depth knowledge of any particular field. Reading materials will be uploaded online or sent via email. Students are expected to attempt to read these materials to the best of their ability and under favorable circumstances. The concepts and presuppositions necessary to understand the key points will be explained in class.
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Course schedule:- Study time:
Twelve sessions on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays from 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM each week.- Start date: From [date]
05/08 - 28/08/2024
Format and location of the course:- The course is free of charge.
- Learning format: In-person
- Location: Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, 4th floor, Building B, 336 Nguyen Trai Street, Thanh Xuan District, Hanoi
Introducing the instructor:Dr. Trinh Huu Tue received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his Habilitation from Humboldt University. His research focuses on the syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and early philosophy of Wittgenstein. His publications include Synthese, Linguistics & Philosophy, Natural Language Semantics, and Journal of Pragmatics.
The course will feature Professor Ngo Bao Chau as a guest speaker in the final section on Frege, with the focus of discussion being the link between Frege's results and Giuseppe Peano's axioms on natural numbers, as well as the position of these axioms, especially the axiom of induction, in number theory.
Registration link:
https://forms.gle/M9m86QCVVHCnm5sr6
View the study schedule.
Related articles: Department of Philosophy:
Announcement of a free course on Analytical Philosophy.Thanh Nien Newspaper:
Professor Ngo Bao Chau participated in a presentation on philosophy in Hanoi.
