Philosophy
Honours in Philosophy
The Philosophy Honours programme is a two-year programme of studies, comprising the Junior Honours and Senior Honours years. Junior and Senior Honours have separate course options, with Single Honours students taking six courses per year, and Joint Honours students taking three per year. There are also fortnightly tutorials held for each class in Junior Honours. Single honours students write a dissertation in an area of their choosing; joint honours can choose to write a dissertation in Philosophy.
Honours students have the option to spend their third year studying abroad.
Junior Honours courses
Junior Honours students have a choice of nine courses, these covering some of the central areas within the subject. This allows students to develop their studies in the areas in which they are most interested: no course is cumpulsory.
The following courses are normally available every year:
JH1 History of Modern Philosophy
We consider the seminal 17th century philosophies of Locke and Berkeley. Both were strongly influenced by Descartes and by the emerging natural sciences. Along with David Hume (see SH2), they are the principal figures of classical British Empiricism, according to which all knowledge comes from experience. Within that constraint, Locke attempts to assess the limits of possible human knowledge on the assumption of Realism, i.e., that the material world is real and independent of our experience of it. This led to his celebrated attempt to distinguish those aspects of experience that correspond to real features of the world from those which do not, or which do so only in an indirect way. Berkeley famously argued that the whole idea of realism is incoherent, and that knowledge and indeed reality itself is confined to mind or 'spirit' as he called it. This module is recommended background for further modules in the history of philosophy such as Kant or Hegel.
JH2 Philosophy of Language
In this course we start from the classic works in philosophy of language by Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell in which they investigate of the nature of language, meaning, reference and related topics. We look next at some contemporary challenges to those views, especially due to Saul Kripke, then to the speech-act theory of Austin, and the pragmatics of Grice. We look also at the theory of Donald Davidson, a famous theory that tries to connect the theory of meaning with things we ascribe meaning to, namely linguistic behaviour. If time permits, we finish with a look at W. V. Quine and Ludwig Wittgenstein, each of which had their distinctive doubts about the idea of a theory of meaning.
JH3 Epistemology
In this course we will critically assess a number of alternative theories of knowledge. These include the tripartite theory, defeasibility theories, relevant alternatives theories and contextualist theories. We will also examine debates over radical scepticism and the range of solutions to sceptical paradoxes, as well as covering disputes about the nature of epistemic justification, such as the dispute between foundationalism and coherentism and between internalism and externalism.
JH4 Political Philosophy
This course concentrates on some central and controversial values invoked in the appraisal of political life and on a range of theories that seek to ground them. In particular, we will discuss the nature and scope of individual rights, liberty and autonomy; and questions concerning the nature and justification of democratic government.
JH5/SH1 Logic
Continues the study of logic started in the second year, proceeding in a somewhat more rigorous and formal manner. Rather than producing proofs in a formal system (e.g. tableaux) the emphasis is rather on proving results about such a system, for example soundness and completeness.
JH6 History of Moral Philosophy
Focusses on classic texts in the history of moral philosophy. The selected texts may vary from time to time. Currently they are Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. Each philosopher's particular concepts and claims will be studied as supposedly connected in a coherent whole, but the emphasis is not merely historical and students are encouraged to engage with these texts with a view to considering whether what the authors say is true: not merely "What does Aristotle/Kant think?" but "Is what Aristotle/Kant thinks correct?"
JH7 Philosophy of Mind
Charts the attempts in philosophy, psychology and cognitive science since the beginning the of 20th century to develop an alternative conception of the mind to Cartesian Dualism: one that is naturalistic, scientifically tractable and philosophically satisfactory. The discussion begins with Behaviourism, moving through early physicalist Identity Theories and recent forms of Functionalism. Along the way, such topics are explored as thought, subjectivity, qualia, mental causation, the analogy between mind and computer, and the dependence of thought-content on the environment.
JH8 Metaphysics
This module is an introduction to contemporary metaphysics, specifically dealing with questions about which things exist and how they are related to each other. By the end of the course, students will have a good understanding of the nature and methods of metaphysics. They will be familiar with a number of central metaphysical questions, debates and theories and will have engaged in these debates themselves, both orally and in writing. Students will gain sufficient knowledge and skills to enable them to independently explore issues in contemporary metaphysics.
JH9 Moral Philosophy
In this course we will consider the following three issues in metaethics: (i) the nature of moral judgements; (ii) internalism and externalism about morality; and (iii) the nature of reasons for action. These topics together generate what has become knows as the Moral Problem; and the central organising theme of the course will be whether this problem can be solved.
In the course of studying these topics students will become familiar with a number of metaethical theories and arguments: expressivism, naturalism, nonnaturalism, the Humean theory of motivating reasons, the Humean theory of normative reasons, Moore’s ‘Open Question Argument’, and Foot’s argument that moral requirements are ‘hypothetical imperatives.’
Senior Honours Courses
Not every senior honours course runs every year; students will normally have a choice of around a dozen options. Many of these courses build upon Junior Honours courses, allowing students to continue to specialize in their areas of interest.
Courses that are, or have been available in recent years, include: