Undergraduate Study Overview

Philosophy: What is it?

Many of the questions studied in Philosophy are ones that occur naturally to us, such as: Are morals simply matters of personal opinion? Do we have free will? What kinds of things can we know for certain? Why should I obey the law? Is there any rational basis for a belief in God? Is the mind just a machine (or: can machines think)? Is truth relative? Under what conditions, if any, is it right to take a human life? What is meaning? What is knowledge? Is there some way other than science of knowing reality?

As you can see, philosophical questions are very general, and cut across the other domains of human knowledge (Philosophy has traditionally been called the 'Queen of Sciences'). These include questions about how knowledge is achieved (Epistemology, the Theory of Knowledge), about the ultimate nature of the reality that particular sciences seek to know (Metaphysics), and about the ultimate basis of rational conduct (Ethics). The philosophical way of answering these questions is for the most part the use of reason, as opposed to observation or experiment as in natural science, and as opposed to revelation or direct insight as in religion. Because of this, Logic, the systematic study of valid argument (correct reasoning) is also a central philosophical subject. Furthermore, Philosophy is uniquely general: it seeks to understand how all the other domains of human knowledge and culture fit together, and how, in the most general terms, they connect to reality.

The study of philosophy is distinctively valuable in its own right, but is also of immense practical value in any career or academic discipline that demands skills of analysis, criticism, argumentation and clarity of thought and writing. Evidence suggests that students with first degrees in philosophy consistently outperform other students on standardized admissions tests for postgraduate study.

(For further discussion of this question, see David Bain's homepage)

The Pattern of Study

The Department subject area offers two semester-length courses at Level 1 (normally taken in first year): Philosophy 1K: Knowledge and the World and Philosophy 1M: Right and Wrong. Most students studying philosophy at level 1 take both of these (one in the first semester and one in the second). A grade of 'D' or better in any level 1 course qualifies you to take philosophy at Level 2. There are also two courses at Level 2, again with one each semester: Philosophy 2M: Morality, Politics and Religion and Philosophy 2K: Knowledge, Meaning and Inference. Most students take both, as honours entry requires it. See below for descriptions of these courses. Students in Honours, whether single or joint, choose from a wide variety of courses.

Entry requirements for undergraduate degrees can be found here.

Levels 1-2

Coursework and Assessment at Levels 1 and 2. In all courses at levels 1 and 2, you attend lectures three or four days per week and attend a tutorial with an assigned tutor. Coursework includes an essay and a final examination, worth 40% and 60%, respectively, of the final mark for the module.

Courses are described below.

Philosophy 1K: Knowledge and the World

This course offers an introduction to philosophical theories of the mind its relation to reality, along with a section on reasoning itself. It begins with a study of the Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes, which in many ways set the agenda for philosophy since it was published in 1641. This lively book introduces students to dominant themes of modern philosophical thinking. Descartes raises fundamental questions concerning the foundations of knowledge, and, famously, argues that the mind and the body are quite distinct entities or substances. He challenges directly the belief that it is perceptual experience which grounds our knowledge of reality. He holds that, so far as the content of our experience goes, it might be just as it is and yet there be nothing in reality corresponding to that content. Knowledge of reality requires something other than what we experience.

In the second part of the course, Simon Blackburn's Think introduces students to more recent perspectives on many of the issues raised by Descartes, along with some other issues such as the implications of modern science for our understanding of the mind and self.

The course will be examining arguments for and against various conclusions, and it will be important to have a conception of how to assess the force of those arguments. Thus a third component of the course aims to provide students with skills in critical thinking or informal logic. Such skills are essential not just in philosophy, but for assessing arguments in politics, advertising, other academic disciplines, and elsewhere.

Philosophy 1M: Right and Wrong

This course introduces students to some of the basic problems that arise in trying to understand that specific kind of thinking that is moral thinking. Everyone - well, nearly everyone - goes in for moral thinking: they say (for instance) that racism or terrorism or homosexuality is wrong, that compassion makes you a good person, that people have a right to education or shelter. But what does it mean to say that something is wrong or good or that people have a right to it? How, if at all, can we find out whether something is wrong or good or that people have a right to it? Are right and wrong 'all subjective', 'just a matter of feeling', so that child abuse is wrong only in so far as you, or some folk, happen to feel disgusted by it? Are people capable of acting morally or, deep down, is everyone selfish?

Emphasis in the course will be on understanding these issues rather than acquiring any particular response to them. Part of the course will focus on a classsic text; other parts will concentrate on more general questions about moral and political philosophy, and about some contemporary moral issues. No particular moral standpoint is required in students taking the course, nor are students expected to come out of the course with any particular moral standpoint. The aim is to learn think critically and reflectively about the issues.

Philosophy 2M: Morality, Politics and Religion

Morality, Politics and Religion is mainly focused on issues in moral and political philosophy. It has four components. The first part introduces students to the study of meta-ethics. In this, theories such as moral relativism and moral scepticism are evaluated. In the second, you study some central issues in the philosophy of religion: What reasons can be given for believing that God exists? What is religion? Is the existence of a benevolent god consistent with the existence of evil? In the third, we examine what is perhaps the most influential of all philosophical theories of morality, Mill's Utilitarianism. According to it, the moral goodness of an action is to be explained in terms of its effects on human happiness. Can such a theory account for concepts of justice and right? The final sectionis a critical examination of John Locke’s classic theory of how a government gets the right to rule people and when people are entitled to take up arms against their governments.

Philosophy 2K: Knowledge, Meaning and Inference

What is it to know something? Are there limits to knowledge, due to the limits of our own physical or psychological make-up? Can we know things they are in themselves, or are we limited to knowing how things appear to us? Does all knowledge depend on the senses, or can some things be known a priori, that is, by pure thought? This course centres around a close study of one the definitive books on these subjects of the past 100 years, Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy. As well as providing an incisive and famously readable account of these issues, it introduces the student to ways of conceptualising the issues characteristic of philosophy in the Anglo-American world since it was written. It provides an excellent background to the more contemporary works studied at Honours. In addition, the course provides an introduction to Logic, which is essential to a systematic understanding of the structure of knowledge, and of the way in which questions of language and meaning enter into philosophy. In the third component of the course, concepts and methods from both the Theory of Knowledge and from Logic are used in examining a cultural phenomenon with an unparalleled influence on modern life – science. What is the methodology of scientific inference? Can science give us knowledge of things that are beyond our powers of observation? Does science deserve its reputation of being fully objective and rational?

Entry into Honours

Entry into honours, either single or joint with another subject, is guaranteed to students who:

• have completed at least one Level 1 Philosophy course with grade D or better at the first sitting, and have completed both Level 2 Philosophy course with at least a B and a C at the first sitting, and have answered one question on logic in the Philosophy 2K examination.

Entry may be granted to students not meeting these requirements; it is decided on a case-by-case basis.

Details of honours options can be found here.

The Philosophy Honours programme is a two-year programme of studies, comprising the Junior Honours and Senior Honours years, and is part of our four-year MA (Honours) degree. Junior and Senior Honours have separate curricula, and the final exam for each course takes place in term 3 of the same session ('split finals'). Each course last one term and 20 credits. Single Honours students take six per year (120 credits), three per term; Joint Honours students take three per year (60 credits), distributed as convenient. Each module is assessed by an essay (30%) and final exam (70%). Fortnightly tutorials in groups of no larger than six are held for Junior Honours modules; Senior Honours modules have larger group seminars. The dissertation is a fourth-year module that is compulsory for single honours students and for joint honours students not doing a dissertation in their other subject.

Honours students have the option to spend their third year studying abroad. See the Study Philosophy Abroad section for more information.

Prospective Honours students might wish to consult the Honours courses overview page for a more detailed description of the courses on offer.

Details of the application procedure are available here.

For more information, contact the Junior Honours Convenor, Dr Ben Colburn.