This degree will enable you to wrestle with fundamental questions about the nature of existence, minds, objects, language, logic, space and time. You will not only learn about philosophical topics, but you’ll also develop the skills required to engage actively with those topics, in a vibrant and supportive academic community.

Programme content

We emphasise the study of Philosophy’s core traditions (e.g. in the works of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume and Kant), as a background to understanding and critically interrogating more recent philosophical questions and concerns. In your second and third years, we give you the freedom to choose your own path through the subject, selecting from an exceptionally broad range of module topics, which currently include: Hegel, Nietzsche, Sartre, Russell, Ethics of Sociability, Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems, Aesthetics, Feminism, Meaning, and Mind. Throughout your degree you will also have the opportunity to take modules from outside of the department, tailoring your degree to what interests you.

Our students benefit from expert guidance from staff in developing strong analytical and critical skills alongside the ability to integrate large bodies of information involving multiple perspectives.

A wide variety of employers value the core abilities of philosophers to explain ideas clearly and to argue persuasively, orally, and in writing. In your first year, you'll gain a solid grounding in the art of philosophy and its history, and familiarity with an unusually broad range of philosophical questions. You'll also develop proficiency in the close reading of complex texts and the preparation of well-crafted prose. Throughout your time with us, we'll support you in improving your philosophical abilities and your knowledge of the subject.

In your second and third years, we'll help you to deepen your philosophical knowledge and skills through a wide range of more specialised option modules.Through engaging in depth with specific topics and thinkers, you'll learn how to closely read and analyse philosophical and other literature, and to think and write clearly.

Our academics produce world-leading research in both analytic and continental philosophy, as well as in interdisciplinary work involving psychology, mathematics, and literature. Because we are involved in teaching at all levels, you are learning from individuals at the forefront of their fields from day one.

Course Structure/Modules

In your first year, your modules will include the following core modules:

• Reason, Argument and Analysis
• Central Themes in Philosophy
• Mind and Reality
• Plato and Descartes
• Logic I: Introduction to Symbolic Logic
• Ancient Philosophy

You'll also select optional modules comprising 30 CATS.

Some recommended choices from the Philosophy department are listed below. However, you may select modules from other departments if you wish.

• Ideas of Freedom
• Existence, Experience and History: Key Topics in Post-Kantian Continental Philosophy
• Philosophy for the Real World: Knowledge, Ignorance and Bullshit*

In your second year you will study the following modules:

• History of Modern Philosophy
• Ethics
• You should then select optional modules from our optional philosophy modules comprising 75 CATS (you may choose to take up to 30 CATS in module(s) from another department)

In your final year, there are no core modules. You choose optional modules totalling 120 CATS. At least 90 CATS should come from our optional philosophy modules. The remaining 30 CATS may come from other departments if you wish.

*Full module description will be available in September 2018.

Further Information

About the course Programme director: Guy Longworth Course structure Modules Entry requirements Prospectus listing

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