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On successful completion of the module, students should be able to:
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Define ‘medieval’, ‘Middle Ages’ and ‘medieval philosophy’ in a meaningful way which serves to underline the importance of considering the Western intellectual tradition from Antiquity to the 14th century.
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Identify key thinkers (and key texts by key thinkers) from the medieval period in Western thought and analyse their contribution to philosophy.
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Assess key problems (recurring themes) of medieval philosophy: e.g. the problem of universals, the problem of representation, the problem of time and eternity, the problem of divine foreknowledge and future contingency, the soul-body problem, the mind-soul problem.
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Identify and assess key trends and key movements in medieval philosophy: e.g Augustinism, Aristotelianism, Latin-Averroism, Illuminationism, Realism, Conceptualism, Nominalism.
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Discuss the complex issue of the ‘sources’ for medieval thought: in Neoplatonism, in Aristotle, the medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophical heritage and its influence on Western Christian thought in the Middle Ages.
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Identify the ‘medieval in the modern’, i.e. where elements of medieval thought may be discerned in patterns of philosophical thinking today.
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Demonstrate, through written and verbal communication skills, a philosophical approach to the meaningful reading of medieval thought from the standpoint of the present day.
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