If you are inquisitive and have a logical mind, Philosophy is right for you

Philosophy, which literally means love of wisdom, is one of the oldest academic disciplines besides Mathematics. In the Indian context, it also implies a way of living life righteously.

Hence, philosophical analysis refers to intellectual and reflective method for attempting to comprehend the underlying principles and to discover normative criteria. At the same time, philosophical activity refers to rational and critical examination or a critique of the most basic elements of our everyday life situations and experiences.

Philosophy differs from other academic disciplines in mainly being normative. For example, when philosopher states that human beings are rational beings, it is not a descriptive statement of how humans behave but how they need to act. The normative function of philosophy also implies an attempt to unravel or conceptually analyse the fundamentals of underlying principles. Accordingly, it can be argued that philosophical enquiry and methodology differ sharply from natural sciences and other social sciences as well.

The BA (H) Philosophy course is being taught at 15 colleges of Delhi University and is being taught as inter-disciplinary credit course for various BA Honours courses and as Discipline course for BA Programme in most colleges.

Students pursuing the BA (H) Philosophy course in DU have to study papers such as Logic, Elements of Indian Philosophy, History of Western Philosophy and Text of Indian Philosophy and Ethics as compulsory papers and rest three are optional papers. For instance, there are options to choose from Social and Political Philosophy, Early and Later Greek Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Language, Contemporary Philosophy, Aesthetics and Philosophy of Logic.

A student needs to be inquisitive, be able to have a critical insight, needs to have good command over language and be able to put things in perspective besides having a flair for logical analysis. However, any intelligent minded and a keen learner can pursue this course.

(The course profile on BSc (H) Biomedical Sciences published on Wednesday erroneously mentioned that admission to the course is through entrance examination. Admission is based on merit.)

Rekha Navneet is an Associate Professor at Gargi College.