Main Building
IS-101 Reykjavík
Iceland

DEGREE PROGRAMS IN PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy may be taken as either a major (60 credits), extended major (90 credits), or minor subject (30 credits) for the B.A. degree, which is equivalent to the North American B.A., although differently composed. The undergraduate programs are designed to provide basic grounding in the history of Western philosophy and in the principal philosophical fields (ethics, epistemology, logic, metaphysics, political philosophy). Various issues in contemporary philosophy are also studied. Both the Continental and the Anglo-American philosophical traditions are represented.

The language of instruction is Icelandic. However, a number of courses are offered in English in order to accommodate visiting foreign students. While it is possible for visiting students to take the Department's English-language philosophy courses for degree credit at their home universities (as is regularly done by exchange students under the ERASMUS and NORDPLUS schemes) it is not possible to study for the B.A. degree in English only, since most of the required B.A. courses are given exclusively in Icelandic.

The Department also offers an M.A. program, run in conjunction with specific foreign partner universities. Admission to this program is very limited. The degree offered is a two-year, taught M.A., equivalent to the North American M.A. The first year consists of course work at the M.A.-level; the student studies abroad at a partner university for at least one semester of the first year. The second year is devoted to the writing of an M.A.-thesis under the supervision of one of the members of the permanent teaching staff. There are a number of additional requirements, including work as a teaching assistant. Completion of the degree on an accelerated schedule, in one calendar year, is possible, although not encouraged. Visiting postgraduate students may, given prior agreement with the Department of Philosophy and the student's home institution, take the Department's English-language philosophy courses for degree credit at their home universities, as these courses are seminars taught at the B.A./M.A. level. It is also possible in principle to study for the M.A. degree in English only.

Select here for information concerning philosophy courses offered in English.

Select here for English translation of the chapter on the Department of Philosophy from the 1999-2000 University of Iceland Catalogue.

PERMANENT TEACHING STAFF

Professors:
Arnór Hannibalsson
Erlendur Jónsson
Mikael M. Karlsson
Páll Skúlason
Þorsteinn Gylfason

Associate Professors:
Vilhjálmur Árnason

Assistant Professors:
Gunnar Harðarson
Sigríður Þorgeirsdóttir

STAFF INTERESTS AND RECENT ACTIVITIES

Arnór Hannibalsson (Ph.D., University of Edinburgh, 1973)
Prof. Hannibalsson concentrates mainly in the fields of æsthetics, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of history and political philosophy. He has published two textbooks in philosophy, Söguspeki (Philosophy of History; Reykjavík, 1987), and Fagurfræði (Æsthetics; Reykjavík, 1987), along with a number of articles on political issues and a translation of Plato's Theaetetus (Reykjavík, 1989).

Erlendur Jónsson (Ph.D., Cambridge University, 1978)
Prof. Jónsson's main fields of interest include formal and philosophical logic, philosophy of language, logical semantics, philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophy of mathematics, and the philosophy of Schopenhauer. He has published two introductions to the concepts and methods of modern and traditional logic, Frumhugtök rökfræðinnar (Basic Concepts of Logic; Reykjavík, 1997) and Aðferðir rökfræðinnar (Methods of Logic; Reykjavík, 1996), and a survey of theories concerning the nature and progress of science, Vísindaheimspeki (Philosophy of Science; Reykjavík, 2nd ed. 1990). In 1982-83 he was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow and worked under Wolfgang Stegmüller in Munich. Prof. Jónsson is presently writing about the semantics and reference of proper names and is editing an Icelandic dictionary of philosophy.

Gunnar Harðarson (dr.phil., Université de Paris I, 1984)
Dr. Harðarson is a medievalist and an historian of Icelandic philosophy, with additional research interests in the history of philosophy, history of ideas, æsthetics, and the philosophy of religion. He has published numerous articles on Icelandic philosophy, most especially on Icelandic medieval thought. His most recent major publication is Littérature et spiritualité en Scandinavie médiévale: La traduction norroise du De arrha animae de Hugues de Saint-Victor (Paris & Turnhout: Brepols, 1995). During 1990 he held a research fellowship at the Arnamagnæan Manuscript Institute in Copenhagen. Dr. Harðarson is currently co-editor of Skáldskaparmál, an Icelandic journal of literary and intellectual history (est. 1990).

Mikael M. Karlsson (Ph.D., Brandeis University, 1973)
Prof. Karlsson works in the fields of ethics, philosophy of law, history and philosophy of science, metaphysics, and ancient philosophy. His most recent publications include articles on normative inference, rational ends, legal interpretation and judge-made law, skepticism with regard to reason, and the ontology of thought and perception. His current projects include work on colors and secondary qualities, and theories of self-motion in Aristotle. In addition to having taught at a variety of European universities within the context of the Erasmus program, he has been a visiting fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh (1988), and has also held fellowships at the Centre for Philosophy and Public Affairs in St. Andrews, Scotland, the Institute of Nordic Law in Rovaniemi, Finland, and the Center for Criminology and the Social and Philosophical Study of Law in Edinburgh (all in 1991).

Páll Skúlason (dr.phil., Université Catholique de Louvain, 1975)
Prof. Skúlason works mainly in the fields of theoretical and applied ethics, metaphysics, political philosophy, and meta-philosophy. Has published a number of articles in ethics and political philosophy, a book on ethics and ethical decision-making, Siðfræði (Ethics; Reykjavík, 1990), and a cultural critique, Menning og sjálfstæði (Culture and Independence; Reykjavík, 1994). He has also published four collections of his own articles: Pælingar (Speculations; Reykjavík, 1987), Pælingar II (Speculations II; Reykjavík, 1989), Sjö siðfræðilestrar (Seven Lectures on Ethics; Reykjavík, 1991), and I skjóli heimspekinnar (In the Shelter of Philosophy; 1995); . He is presently working in environmental ethics and is writing a book on attitudes towards nature and the environment.

Sigríður Þorgeirsdóttir (dr.phil., Humboldt Universität, 1993)
Dr. Þorgeirsdóttir is a Nietzsche scholar with special interests in aesthetics, ethics and social philosophy. Her book, Vis creativa - Kunst und Wahrheit in der Philosophie Nietzsches, was published in 1996 (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann). In addition, she has published Icelandic translations of short works by Nietzsche and Habermas (both with Magnús D. Baldursson) and a number of articles on feminist ethics and politics. She is presently co-editing a collection of essays on justice and the family to be published by the Institute of Ethics at the University of Iceland. Dr. Þorgeirsdóttir has been teaching philosophy at the University of Rostock, but will assume a teaching position at the University of Iceland as of January, 1997.

Vilhjálmur Árnason (Ph.D., Purdue University, 1982)
Dr. Árnason works mainly in the fields of theoretical and applied ethics, social and political philosophy, existentialism, and philosophy of religion. His book on ethics for the health professions, Siðfræði lífs og dauða (The Ethics of Life and Death; Reykjavík), which was voted the best Icelandic scholarly book of 1993, will shortly appear in German translation. He has also published a brief survey of the history of ethics (Reykjavík, 1990) and numerous essays, for example on freedom, morality and human nature, medical ethics, education, and the moral and social aspects of the Icelandic sagas. He is presently engaged in research on discourse ethics and in a project concerning the autonomy of the elderly. During 1993, Dr. Árnason was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow and pursued philosophical research at the Freie Universität and the Max Planck Institut für Bildungsforschung in Berlin. He co-edited the Icelandic literary and philosophical journal, Skírnir (est. 1826) from 1987 to 1994.

Þorsteinn Gylfason (B.A., Harvard University, 1965)
Prof. Gylfason's principle areas of research include philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and political philosophy. He has published various articles on these subjects in Icelandic journals as well as in foreign philosophical journals in other languages (principally English). He has also done work in philosophical theology and in virtue ethics. He has published a logic textbook, Þrætubókarkorn (A Little Book of Quarrels; Reykjavík, 1989), based largely upon Peter Geach's Reason and Argument (Oxford, 1976). His other philosophical books are Tilraun um manninn (Essay on Man; Reykjavík, 1970) and Tilraun um heiminn (Essay on the World; Reykjavík, 1992). A book on the philosophy of language is in preparation. He is the founder and editor of Lærdómsrit Bokmenntafélagsins, a series of thirty philosophical and scientific classics and of the academic series Philosophica Islandica (three volumes to date).

RESEARCH INSTITUTES IN PHILOSOPHY

Institute of Philosophy of the University of Iceland
University of Iceland, Main Building,
IS-101 Reykjavík,
Iceland

tel. (354) 525-4351
fax. (354) 552-1331

Director: Erlendur Jónsson

The Institute of Philosophy organizes and sponsors research in all areas of philosophy. The translation of philosophical classics into Icelandic and the preparation of philosophical textbooks, and other resources, in Icelandic are important functions. All faculty members of the Philosophy Department of the University of Iceland are members of the Institute.

The Institute of Ethics
University of Iceland
Main Building
IS-101 Reykjavík
Iceland

tel. (354) 525-4339
fax. (354) 552-1331

Director: Páll Skúlason

The Institute of Ethics, a joint institute of the University of Iceland and the National Church of Iceland, organizes and sponsors projects in applied ethics, for example professional and business ethics, medical ethics and environmental ethics. It provides advisory services to public institutions, businesses and governmental agencies.