Philosophy of Religion (Doctoral Studies)

Pre-requisites: No prerequisites.

Course objectives: The doctoral students will be familiar with the ways in which theism, atheism and agnosticism are justified or rejected in the contemporary philosophy. Current theistic, atheist and agnostic argumentation will be critically evaluated.

Course description: The philosophy of religion course at the PhD level consists of two parts. The first part includes advanced topics from the undergraduate curriculum concerning the proofs for existence of God, Pascal’s wager, religious epistemology, rationality of religious belief, and the second deals with the philosophy of religion of the British empiricists, including Locke’s evidentialism, Berkeley’s conception of God, Hume’s arguments in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and his account of miracles. The special emphasis is put on the relation between skepticism and religious faith. The students are required to write two term papers and give oral defense of them.

Learning Outcomes: The study of the contemporary philosophy of religion will provide the doctoral students with a deeper grasp of the historical problems they had become familiar with during their undergraduate studies.

Literature/Reading:

• Drago Đurić, Postojanje Boga, Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva, Srpsko filozofsko društvo, Beograd, 2011.
• Oppy, G., 2006, Arguing about Gods, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Martin, M. (Ed.), 2007, The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Swinburne, R., 2004, The Existence of God, New York: Oxford University Press.
• Plantinga, A., 2000, Warranted Christian Belief, New York: Oxford University Press.
• Mašan Bogdanovski, "Skeptički fideizam u Hjumovim Dijalozima o prirodnoj religiji", Theoria, Beograd, 4/2006
• Dejvid Hjum, Dijalozi o prirodnoj religiji, Izdavačko preduzeće Matice srpske, Novi Sad, 1994.
• Baruch A. Brody, Readings in the Philosophy of Religion: An Analytic Approach, Prentice Hall, 1974.
• David O’Connor, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hume on Religion, Routledge, London, 2001.