Fundamentals of Philosophy (Lectures)

The book is a series of lectures on some major issues in philosophy that the author has been teaching for years within the mandatory course “Fundamentals of Philosophy” for the Bachelor degree students. It is addressed to all beginners in philosophy, both to students and wide range of readers. The lectures cover ancient as well as contemporary theories on a wide range of topics. The first two lectures are introductory and consider when, where and why philosophy has been originated, the forms of worldview taking into account the differences between philosophy and religion, philosophy and science. The topics of the next several lectures are traditionally taken as ontological and metaphysical ones. Being dedicated to being, substance, attribute, space and time, causality, the existence of God they go beyond the metaphysical tradition and present the non-metaphysical one, either. They are followed by the lectures on the possibility of cognition, the ways and forms of cognition, truth and its opposites, criteria of truth as well as scientific knowledge and scientific methods. The latter portrays a long history of philosophical debates on epistemological and methodological issues. The book ends with the lectures which examine various philosophical positions on human being, life and death, the meaning of life, alienation, freedom and aspects of society, state, and power.