Philosophy

The purpose of the course:

1.      To inform students about ideas of the prehistory and existing strategies of thinking from Antiquity to the New Age (the time of the emergence of science),

2.      To form the skills of philosophical thinking, logical argumentation, philosophical and scientific questioning as especially important part of thinking culture

Main content: specificity and structure of philosophical knowledge, the subject of philosophy; the main stages of development and representatives of ancient philosophy: pre-Socratics (Milesian school, Elean school, Pythagorean union, sophists, atomists), classical philosophy (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle), the Hellenistic-Roman period (Epicureans, Stoics, skeptics); specificity (theocentrism) and the main representatives of medieval philosophy; the essence of anthropocentrism of the philosophy of the Renaissance, its main representatives; rationalism and empiricism in the philosophy of modern times, the content of the teachings of the main representatives; the main problems of philosophical ontology, epistemology (epistemology), anthropology, social philosophy, philosophy of culture, ethics.


History and Methodology of Biology

The course introduces students to the basic concepts of modern biology and related sciences in the context of their origin and historical evolution from the origin of human culture to the present. The emphasis is on the history of Western European science, but information about the state and development of science in other countries is provided as needed. Special attention is paid to the peculiarities of the historical development of biological science in China and Russia.