Dissertation (PH313)
This module is an opportunity for you to carry out independent research, throughout the autumn and spring term of your final year, on a topic chosen in consultation with your supervisor, to produce a piece of work of up to 10,000 words.
The dissertation will demonstrate your ability to select an interesting, but manageable philosophical topic for discussion, find out about existing views on this topic in the literature, put forward a sustained, structured argument for your own view, and defend it against counter-arguments.
Examples of undergraduate dissertations our students have carried out in 2015/16 include:
- What is feminist art and why do we need it?
- On the Possibility and Implications of Achieving Human-Level Artificial Intelligence.
- What is Heidegger’s conception of the nature and task of Philosophy?
- Feminism, Vegetarianism and Sentimentality: Why We Should ‘Love’ Animals
- Moral Obligations to Alleviate Poverty: A Virtue Ethics Approach to Overcome the Demandingness Objection
- What does an infant know when they communicate referentially?
- What is the role of Eudaimonia in Plato’s Republic and how can it be applied to modern day?
- Nietzsche’s account of Nihilism and a critical engagement with Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche
- Grammar in Philosophical Investigations
This module is available to final-year single honours Philosophy students, (including 'Philosophy with...' variants). It is also available to final-year PPE students and Mathematics and Philosophy students as an option. Students who have opted to take an independent project in Philosophy are precluded from taking a dissertation at the same time. Students wishing to submit a Philosophy dissertation in year 3 must normally have obtained an average of at least a 2:1 in their second year to be approved to do so.
Timings and CATS
This module is worth 30CATS and is undertaken throughout the final year