MEET YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Dr. Ahmed Abdel Meguid
Department of Religion, Syracuse University

COURSE OVERVIEW

Epistemology is essentially a theory and it fundamentally deals with:

1. What is true knowledge? (Concerns identity of knowledge);
2. What can we know? (Concerns various forms of knowledge and what qualifies to be described as true knowledge);
3. How can we attain true knowledge? (Sources of knowledge).

Dr. Ahmed Abdel Meguid clearly explains the Agrippan Trilemma, explaining the justification of knowledge and true beliefs when considering Foundationalism vs. Coherentism.

This course will also go over the agreement on two main sources of knowledge:

1. Reason –  intellection.
2. Sensation – intuition “sense data”.

Finally, the course focuses on how imagination is regarded as a source of construction of knowledge. Imagination can be tricky as it can be considered as having a subordinate role in helping relate to senses. However, one of the greatest achievements ever was the mind’s ability to expand the role of the imagination. Many took imagination as an epistemic source, others took it as an approximation of reason, and some others have given it an important role in synthesizing ideas and constructing our knowledge of the physical reality around us – famously credited to Immanuel Kant.

COURSE CONTENT

I. Preamble

• Unit 1 – What Is Epistemology?

II. Problems of Epistemology: History and Themes

• Unit 2 – Problems of Epistemology: The Beginning with Ancient Philosophy
• Unit 3 – Problems of Epistemology: Developments in Late Antiquity and Pre-Scholastic Christian Philosophy
• Unit 4 – Problems of Epistemology: Early Modern Philosophy and Representational Thinking
• Unit 5 – Problems of Epistemology: Kantian Philosophy and the Synthesis of the Modern/Protestant Turn in Philosophy
• Unit 6 – Problems of Epistemology: Post-Kantian Analytic Philosophy

III. Islamic Philosophy and the History and Themes of Epistemology

• Unit 7 – The Beginnings: Early Kalām (Philosophical Theology) and the Problems of Epistemology
• Unit 8 – Critical Encounters with the Ancient Tradition: al-Kindī and al-Fārābī and the Epistemic Critique of Classical Ontology
• Unit 9 – From Philosophical Theology to Philosophy: Avicennian Modal Metaphysics and Epistemology
• Unit 10 – Averroes and al-Ghazālī. Modal Epistemology and the Critique of the Neo-Platonic Failures of Avicenna (Coming soon!)
• Unit 11 – Post-Classical Islamic Modal Epistemology: Glimpses and Themes (Coming soon!)

To access all course content, click here.