Philosophy

To create a generation of students who are active, enlightened, and have plenty of experience in cultural context and with a resolute Palestinian identity within an intellectual context both a public and a private context. It also proposes the matter of knowledge of social notions among ideals that challenge historic and geographic contexts, and placing a culturally educated section of graduates among the already existing graduates with a comprehensive vision of humanity that exists beyond the narrow framing of different fields of knowledge or social spheres that normally encompasses our students.

  • To link and bridge the university's vision of itself with the student's views and to what they encounter of views and visions of reality that stems from different fields of specializations.
  • To create and emphasize Palestinian identity for the students via introducing them to their history and their Arabic cultural heritage at the same time.
  • To create unique students that are capable of interacting with humanistic and social ideals simultaneously.
  • Seeking to form an inherent, culturally enlightened, and overall knowledgeable Palestinian society via the students, more specifically working on the cognitive skills of the students.
  • Knowledge of human thought heritage whether it is European or Arabic, Historic or Political
  • Understanding the elements of enlightenment and the role of the individual in achieving it amid the interactions of contextual and theoretical notions
  • Understanding that one singularly enclosed idea on its self does not necessarily create an enlightened individual, rather, an idea of development that confines itself to its potential ability to development only, without actually developing.
  • The ability to think critically and transcend the academic divisions of knowledge and therefore be capable of analyzing different intellectual positions and linking them to their original notions or context if found.
  • The ability to view cultural ties in their universalism as well as in their global nature.
  • The ability to analyze and deconstruct intellectual positions or issues using the rules of argument formation and logical structures.
  • Knowledge of human ideas from its mythological origins and its current eastern compositions and knowledge of European and Arabic ideology from their origins during the renaissance all the way up to their current modern time.
  • Knowledge of Palestine as a cultural and intellectual subject in the form of self-narrative with its geographical contexts outside the limitations of geography and claims of the essential narrative. Thus, understanding the dimensions of the question of the Palestinian identity politically, legally, pedagogically, and methodologically.
  • Understanding the rules of logic, and using them to form arguments and or criticize arguments regardless of the field of knowledge these arguments are formed in.
  • Knowledge of specific topics such as democracy as a concept similar to those demonstrated in the course on Democracy, the course on Palestinian History, the course on Eastern Religions, and other courses of a similar caliber.
  • Understanding and using the methods of logic in presenting arguments whether written or spoken. Thus, developing the ability to analyze cases from student reality and placing them in a theoretical frame that explains them.
  • Realization of the dimensions and importance of multiculturalism and differing in opinion, and from there onwards causing the students reflection on the importance of this realization on the nature of society.
  • The creation of a distinguished graduate indigenous to Birzeit University that characterized by general vision of thought and knowledge.
  • The creation of unique graduates as a standalone individual regardless of the internal field of study or specialization in Birzeit.
  • The creation of active graduates in society, who are epistemologically capable of arguing for their Arabic Palestinian self, and are aware of their nationalistic self, and their independent, enlightened humanitarian self.
Minor in Philosophy (18 credit hours)

Credit Hours

Course No. 

Prerequisite(s)

3 credit hours

PHIL231 | INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY

 

3 credit hours from the following courses

PHIL233 | A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

 

PHIL234 | ARAB ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY

 

3 credit hours from the following courses

PHIL438 | SEMINAR IN PHILOSOPHY

PHIL231; recognition by the department is required

PHIL439 | Special Topic

 

9 Credit Hours of Philosophy Courses for second, third, and fourth year students