Course Description

Year I-III, Semesters I & II

English Language Support Unit (ELSU)

As most textbooks and research books in Cambodia are written in English, foreign language acquisition is essential for professors and students alike who want to increase their skills and knowledge levels. The development of the knowledge base and research skills of the students at the Royal University of Phnom Penh is an outstanding goal of this program.

Year II, Semesters I & II

Mr. Nhim Bak Ngorn

Introduction to ethics is designed to enable students to understand basic ethical theories, values and importance, and their applications in live and society. This course emphasizes the ethical ideas from ancient to contemporary periods � in face of moral problems and dilemmas in human world.

Year II, Semesters I & II

Mr. Chet Hol

Human beings live in social and political world. They need political thoughts in decision-making for personal life and society. This course is designed to equip students with main concepts like politics, law, state, power, justice, property, liberty, equality, leadership and so on, from the political philosophies from both Eastern and Western political ideas.

Year II, Semester II

Mr. Seng Hokmeng

Epistemology known as �theory of knowledge' will explore into human knowledge, which can be grouped according to their degree of emphasis on subjectivity or objectivity of knowledge. This course examines the courses of knowing in reason and senses, grounds for establishing the validity of claims to know, the relationship between various sciences and other methods and ways of knowing.

Year II, Semester I

Mr. Ngeth Saroeun

This course examines the growth and development of western thought during the medieval and renaissance periods (5th � early 16th century). It emphasises on the Christian philosophies of Augustine and Aquinas, and on the humanistic philosophies of the Italian renaissance.

Year II, Semesters I

Dr. Saphon Somolireasmey

Research methodology is an indispensible subject for academic study. This course will equip students with research knowledge and skills that will enable them to become more adept in scientific inquiry, quantitative and qualitative investigation and library research, particularly related to the field of philosophy. Students study the form and style for their paper and using materials to support their own writing.

Year II, Semester I & II

Mr. Seng Hokmeng

It studies the growth and development of Western philosophical thought in the Modern Age, which includes the works of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Rene Descartes, David Hume, George Hegel, and Immanuel Kant.

Year III, Semester I

Mr. Khmao Savorn

Metaphysics is a subject that seeks to understand what is the ultimate cause of things � what make things come into existence? This course examines the classical metaphysical systems and issues such as causality, substance, and nature of metaphysical thinking.

Year III, Semester I

Mrs. Khom Sakhan

This course examines the nature of scientific knowledge, the difference between scientific entities and our common sense conceptions of real entities, the dispute between evolution and creationism theories, and the question of relativism about scientific knowledge.

Year II, Semester II

Dr. Saphon Somolireasmey

Research methodology is an indispensible subject for academic study. This course will equip students with research knowledge and skills that will enable them to become more adept in scientific inquiry, quantitative and qualitative investigation and library research, particularly related to the field of philosophy. Students study the form and style for their paper and using materials to support their own writing.

Year III, Semesters I

Mr. May Sinan

This course examines philosophical questions central to an understanding of what it means to exist as a human being. Central issues include human knowing and willing, personal and social identity, the foundation of morality, and the existence of God.

Year III, Semester I

Mr. Ngeth Saroeun

This course studies the contemporary philosophy from both Western and Eastern philosophical thoughts. It focuses on the turn in philosophical perspectives from ancient, medieval and modern ideas to a new way of thinking which bases mainly on analytic and linguistic interpretation of the life world, personal experiences and social facts.

Year III, Semester I

Mr. Chim Phorst

This course studies ethical theories and their applications in the real world. This subject emphasizes the applications of ethical theories in main issues as environment, torture, suicide, abortion, euthanasia, sexual ethics, aid for the needy, as well as ethics in medicine, law, business, science.

Year III, Semester II

Mr. Chet Hol

Human beings need thinking in order to live harmoniously with one another in society. For this, humans need social philosophical reasoning. This course studies social role of philosophy in society. It is designed to acquaint students with knowledge social philosophy, which will entail students of both theoretical and practical aspects, with aims to build in them the human values and characters, and the awareness of their roles in society in which they live.

Year III, Semester II

Mrs. Mech Samphors

Indian philosophy is among the earliest philosophies that are widely and deeply studied in the world. Originated in India, as this course is named, the Indian philosophy has influenced on both Asian and Western worlds. The emphasis of this course will be on the basic inspirational works on Hinduism, and Buddhism, and Jainism.

Year III, Semester II

Mr. May Sinan

Phenomenology as a school of philosophy was developed in German universities before World War I, most particularly by Edmund Husserl; it was continued by Martin Heidegger, and others, and by Jean-Paul in his existentialism; and it keeps on to be flourished by many philosophers at the present time.

Year III, Semester II

Mrs. Khom Sakhan

This course examines the principal modes of Chinese thought, from their origins through to the imperial period. Students study the basic, unique characteristics of the Chinese mind � ranging from Confucius, Mencius, Lao Tzu, and Chung Tzu. It also emphasizes the Chinese tradition and culture in order to understand the cultural background from which modern communist China has emerged.

Year III, Semester II

Mr. Meas Phalla

A study of aesthetics, the philosophical science concerned with theories of arts and beauty, including the relationship between beauty and the arts, the function and value of the arts in culture, and standards for criticism and judgment of beauty. Students study two interdependent phenomena in aesthetics: the relationship of man to the world, and the artistic works of man.

Year IV, Semester I

Mrs. Mech Samphors

The central questions of philosophy of education are: What person will be after receiving education? What is the real purpose of education? Who has the authority to control over the process and contents of education? Should school follow a social norm, a traditional value, a theory, and opinion, a method or attempt to bring the change? This course will attempt to bring discussion from the various philosophers to answer the above questions, especially their discussion about the socio-economic, political and philosophical aspects that effect or bring people here and now what is their purpose of education and how we achieve that purpose.

Year IV, Semester I

Mr. May Sinan

A critical and speculative examination of the philosophy of history. In one branch, students conduct a philosophical analysis of historiography: the logical, conceptual, and epistemological characterisation of what historians do. In the other, they attempt to discover, either in the overall course of events or in the general nature of the historical process, some meaningful significance that transcends the intelligibility achieved by ordinary historical works. Topics include the nature of historical knowledge, the problems of historical inquiry, and a critique of the philosophies of history and related disciplines.

Year IV, Semester I

Dr. Saphon Somolireasmey

This course is about the following: A Panoramic survey of the development of industry in the future, the fundamental of management, the functions and responsibility of management, research, costing, standardization, quality and management, planning and the coordination of all for the purpose of manufacture.

Year IV, Semester I

Mr. Khmao Savorn

Provide a comprehensive and coherent account of dialectical materialism. Included are laws and categories present in all things and process at all times in rational thinking. From the law of motion in nature and society, Karl Marx expounded the method of dialectic as a science and tried to apply these concepts to explain the unsettling developments in the social world as basically a law-governed process, and to delimit this process further overall course.

Year IV, Semester I

Mrs. Khom Sakhorn

Economic ideas are very important. It is because human beings live in economic world. How far humans' thoughts about the world, and human life in general, have affected their thoughts about the economical element of human life in particular. To struggle for existence, for material wants and comfort, humans need philosophical thinking to direct their goals. Philosophy of economics is therefore indispensably needed.

Year IV, Semester II

Mr. Chim Phorst

Examines the philosophical problems raised by law, including the nature and aims of law, the basic of legal obligation, the relationship between law and morality, the rationale behind legal responsibility and punishment, legal obligation and the rule of law.

Year IV, Semester II

Mr. Khmao Savorn

This course examines some important concepts in the social sciences including explanation and understanding, Holism and Individualism, objectivity, fact, value, causality, freedom of human being, and theories. Students also examine problems that have confronted great thinkers in their attempts to construct systematic theories of social phenomena, and the difference between natural science and social science.

Year IV, Semester II

Mr. Nhim Bak Ngorn

This course explores religious philosophies from a critical examination of problems in religions through the use of classical, modern and contemporary sources. Major concepts include the nature of religion, the meaning of religious language, the concept and existence of God, grounds for belief and disbelief in God, the varieties of religious experience, and immortality.

Year IV, Semester II

Mr. Puth Sunphan

This course examines ideas of freedom in human existence, the self/other, the value of authenticity, death and the meaning of existence through the works of major existentialist philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Schopenhauer, Ponty, Sartre, and Camus.

Year IV, Semester II

Mr. May Sinan

From the history of Hermeneutics, hermeneutics as the theory or the art of the interpretation of texts, usually ancient, has been concentrated on the interpretation of Scripture. In the Renaissance, it paid attention on the classical texts of Greece and Roman. As a general science of interpretation, hermeneutics is participated by number of such diverse fields of knowledge as philosophy, sociology, history, theology, psychology, jurisprudence, literary criticism, and humanities at large.

Year IV, Semester II

Thesis writing is one of the crucial tasks in academic life of students pursuing higher education. It is a partial requirement for students to fulfil in order to finish their study. Students are advised to choose topic for their thesis upon their personal interest in exploring things that they wish to know in detail. Thesis writing determines students' appreciation of higher academic learning, responsibility and commitment to doing researches and writing a major work in order to achieve academic excellence. Their thesis has to reflect both theory and practice in society. Students' thesis topic has to be approved by an appointed supervisor before they are advised to develop a research proposal and outline for their thesis. The topic has to be relating to subject area of their specialization. The quality and grading of the thesis will be made by evaluation by an academic committee in a thesis defence that is organized philosophy department. The evaluation will be based on the content of the students' thesis, their performance in presenting their ideas and reflections, explanation and analysis in answering the committee's questions.