BA (Hons)
Philosophy BA (Hons)
Philosophy

Module Overview

This module provides students with the opportunity to resurrect and understand the ordinary lives of people like themselves and their forebears from the sources available to us. The course picks up on both well-established and recent trends in historical research that have sought to give voice to ordinary people and promote from the historical records the lives of marginalised people such as homosexuals, women, children, the working classes, ethnic minorities alongside more familiar narratives of the great and the good.

Module Overview

This module introduces students to philosophical questions about the nature of art and beauty. For example: What is art? Can anything be a work of art? Can a pile of elephant dung be art? Is beauty objectively real or only ‘in the eye of the beholder’? Can aesthetic judgements be right or wrong? Is Beethoven better than Beyoncé? Is Shakespeare better than Eastenders? Or are aesthetic disputes like deciding between the merits of different flavours of ice cream?

Students can also consider questions that arise in relation to specific artforms: How is it possible to respond emotionally towards the plight of fictional characters that are known not to exist? Do rock/pop music and classical music require different aesthetic criteria for their appreciation and evaluation? Why do we take pleasure in the aesthetic representation of tragic events? Students will be guided through their reading of various classical and contemporary works on such issues, and encouraged to think for themselves about the problems addressed.

Module Overview

This module explores the nineteenth-century literature of the USA, chiefly focusing on fiction and poetry. Authors covered include Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Walt Whitman and Willa Cather, among others.

Module Overview

This module will give students an opportunity to engage in close philosophical study of texts by the most influential ancient philosophers. Texts will be studied in English translation. They will include works by Plato and Aristotle, as well as by less familiar philosophers of the ancient world (c. 500 BC-500 AD Greece and Rome). The focus of the module will be philosophical, not interpretive or historical: students will be expected assess the credibility of the positions and arguments advanced by Plato, Aristotle and others and to develop their own views in dialogue with these thinkers.

Module Overview

This module gives students the opportunity to build and demonstrate problem-solving skills in the context of applied philosophy. Students will be introduced to the interdisciplinary methods of applied ethics and examine together a series of selected applied ethics case studies, drawn from a variety of different areas including health care, climate justice, AI, beginning and end of life. Students will then work on an individual project which they will present in poster form at the end of the module. The module will give students a thorough grounding in applied ethics and enable them to evidence the key employability skill of problem-solving in the context of applied philosophy.

Module Overview

This module provides an introduction to Indian philosophy and gives students the opportunity to study some of the classic texts of Indian philosophy in detail. While texts will be studied in English translation students can also gain a familiarity with the elements of classical Indian (principally Sanskrit) philosophical vocabulary. Topics will be drawn from both the astika (orthodox Hindu) schools such as Naya-Vaisheshika and Samkhya-Yoga and nastika schools such as Jainism and Buddhism, and will cover areas such as logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and linguistics. The focus of the module will be philosophical, not interpretive or historical. Students will be expected assess the credibility of the positions and arguments advanced by classical Indian thinkers and to develop their own views in dialogue with them.

Module Overview

Clio, the muse of History, had many and diverse children. This module examines both the birth and development of historiography in Ancient Greek Literature. Students will use a wide range of primary sources together with secondary sources and engage with diverse types of writing, ranging from military historians to ethnographers, biographers, geographers, and female historians.

Module Overview

Beginning with the Royal Historical Society’s “Race, Ethnicity and Equality Report” (published in 2018), which raises urgent questions on the diversity of staff, students and curricula at History departments in UK universities, the module analyses live debates on “Decolonising the Curriculum” in higher education. We critique how histories of Empire, colonialism and slavery have been taught in Anglo-American settings, and introduce postcolonial analysis on archives, as well as the “Global South” and “indigenous knowledge” that have often been marginalised in Eurocentric historiographies.

Turning towards the University as a key apparatus of power in the contemporary world, the module then reveals the complex legacies of slavery in the making of a number of UK and US institutions including Liverpool, Bristol, Oxford (#RhodesMustFall), SOAS, University of Virginia and others. Introducing the new field of “Critical University Studies” (CUS), students will learn about the emergence of universities in former colonies including India and South Africa, as well as the phenomenon of “transnational education” that entails the establishment, by prestigious European and American institutions, of satellite campuses around the world. The module then unpacks public understandings of colonial history via recent scholarship on nationalism, patriotism, museums and memories, and ends with a hopeful reflection on pedagogies that will be more inclusive and intersectional in terms of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. This module will be particularly suited to students who intend to develop careers in education.

Module Overview

The Early Modern period in philosophy was home to great thinkers such as George Berkeley, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Rene Descartes, David Hume, Gottfried Leibniz, John Locke, and Baruch Spinoza. It also hosted a number of key philosophical divisions, for example, between realism and idealism, rationalism and empiricism, and dualism and monism. In this module we will engage with a number of these writers and positions, exploring various topics within metaphysics and epistemology, and asking questions about ourselves, the world around us, and the relation between the two.

Module Overview

This module aims to provide an introduction to the basics of Greek for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can gain the ability to translate and interpret sentences and short passages in prose and verse up to intermediate difficulty. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.

Module Overview

This module aims to provide a continued introduction to the basics of Greek for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can refine their ability to translate and interpret sentences and short to medium-length passages in prose and verse up to advanced difficulty. This helps develop a foundation for sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.

Module Overview

Our emotions and our perceptions together make up the bulk of our everyday lived experience. They are amongst the things most familiar to us. Yet, it is possible for them to escape our attention which can instead be on the things given to us through them: we often focus on what is seen, rather than the seeing itself. In this module we will try to shift this focus, investigating emotion and perception themselves. We will investigate questions such as the following. Is an emotion a mere feeling? Can emotions be rational? Are emotions perceptions? Can we perceive things like dogs and cats? What might illusions or hallucinations tell us about perception?

Module Overview

This module explores fundamental questions about humanity's relationship with the natural world through the lens of philosophical inquiry. Drawing on both classical and contemporary thinkers, we examine key debates in environmental ethics, from the intrinsic value of nature to questions of ecological justice and sustainability. Students will critically assess different philosophical approaches to pressing environmental challenges, including climate change and biodiversity loss, while developing sophisticated arguments about environmental responsibility and stewardship. The module combines careful philosophical analysis with practical application, making it relevant for students interested in environmental issues, public policy, or fundamental questions about human-nature relationships. Through thoughtful discussion and analysis, students will be able to develop valuable critical thinking skills while engaging with one of the most significant intellectual challenges of our time.

Module Overview

The purpose of this module is to enable students to examine claims made about what, if anything, makes life meaningful by some of the major figures in the history of philosophy (e.g., Plato, Aristotle, St Augustine, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Marx). The module begins by considering the Question of Meaning itself. Is it intelligible? What is it to seek meaning in life? Is God necessary for life as a whole to have meaning? If so, and if God doesn’t exist, what is an appropriate response to life’s “absurdity” or lack of meaning? Is suicide an ethically defensible response? Or can individual lives have meaning even if life as a whole has none? Could a life be meaningful even if it were entirely occupied with selfish or vicious activities? Could, for example, the life of a torturer be meaningful? Or must our lives have an ethical resonance to be meaningful? We will also consider nihilist views that the conditions necessary for meaning do not obtain, and metaethical debates about the nature of value in general.

Module Overview

The aim of this module is to give students a thorough understanding of two intimately related philosophical traditions that came to prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries: existentialism and phenomenology. Each attempts to address the nature and meaning of human existence from the perspective of individual, first-person experience, focusing in particular on fundamental questions of being, meaning, death, nihilism, freedom, responsibility, value, human relations, and religious faith.

The module will examine selected existential themes through the writings of thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, De Beauvoir, and Camus. Since existentialism is as much a artistic phenomenon as a philosophical one, students will also be given the opportunity to explore existentialist ideas in the works of various literary figures, such as Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, and Milan Kundera.

Module Overview

King Alfred, Viking invasions, the Norman Conquest, Domesday Book, wars of succession spilling over the Channel into Normandy: some of the most emblematic and controversial moments and monuments of English history date to the period students will encounter in this module. But did this period really see the birth of England? How was the modest kingdom of Wessex of the late ninth century transformed in the following two centuries into a state that some historians believe to have been unusually precocious, innovative and efficient in its governing structures? What role did other parties and peoples from the British Isles and further afield play in these developments? And after the extraordinary events of 1066 – which saw England conquered by the Normans – how do we explain a subsequent political crisis so devastating that the survival of the kingdom itself was in doubt by the middle of the twelfth century?

These questions lie at the heart of this module, which will ask students to examine primary sources and engage in longstanding historiographical debates on a weekly basis. Special attention will be paid to showing students how historians use source materials of varying kinds from the Middle Ages to develop, nuance or challenge rival interpretations of this formative period in the early English, Anglo-Scandinavian, and Anglo-Norman worlds; in the process, students will increase their knowledge, broaden their skills, and begin to think about the exciting challenges historians face when trying to understand the many complex and contested aspects of England’s medieval past.

This module will show students that the origins of the country we now know as England merit close and detailed examination. For while historians argue about whether England existed in a recognisable form in 871 when King Alfred became king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, that England not only existed by the middle of the twelfth century but was one of the most powerful kingdoms in Europe, its territorial influence spreading far beyond the Channel, is a matter of consensus. How and when did an idea of England take shape and what were the formative historical processes that made that idea reality? An exploration of these ideas underpins this module, which will introduce students to a range of source materials, both written and archaeological, ranging from coins to chronicles, and castles to collections of documents known as cartularies.

Accordingly, this module will ask students to consider important questions about the origins of government, the beginnings of legal and administrative structures that in some sense persist to this day, and the distribution of the economic resources that made kingship and feudal society possible. By extension, this module will offer students a chance to acquaint themselves with the skills and techniques that allow historians to handle the complex and wide-ranging sources we rely upon to study the period in question, in the process demystifying the study of the Middle Ages and providing a solid basis for further study of medieval societies.

Module Overview

In this module, you will examine how empire functioned not just as a geopolitical map, but as varied systems of racialised and gendered control, enforced through institutions ranging from the classroom and the prison cell to the railway lines that carved up landscapes. By investigating the flows of settlers, migrants, and intermediaries, including the porters behind famous explorers and the labourers sustaining global trade, you will reappraise the myth of ‘blank spaces’ and uncover the complex human networks that linked metropoles to colonies and colonies to one another. Through diverse case studies extending from the Caribbean and East Africa to East and Southeast Asia, you will interrogate the changing dynamics of power, from the ‘benign neglect’ of the nineteenth century to the ends of empire in the twentieth century, violent or otherwise. The module encourages you to look beyond traditional archives to recover the voices of the silenced, analysing sources such as memoirs, newspapers, and oral histories to reconstruct ‘colonial lives’. Whether examining the legacy of imperial heroes or the messy transition to independence, you will develop the digital and research skills to produce work that brings these hidden histories to light, critically reflecting on how the echoes of empire continue to shape our world today.

Module Overview

The University has a strong commitment to providing academic programmes with high vocational relevance, which is maintained through working links with local, national and international organisations and, in particular, through student work placements.

The Placement Year aims to give students a continuous experience of full-time work within an organisation. It should be a three-way co-operative activity between employer, student and University from which all parties benefit. It is more than simply obtaining work during a gap in study – work placements should enable students to experience at first hand the daily workings of an organisation while setting that experience in the broader context of their studies.

The Placement Year constitutes a work placement during an academic year, funded by full-time paid employment* taking place between Level 2 and Level 3. The minimum duration of placement is 39 weeks.

Students wishing to undertake the work placement year must successfully complete the Level 2 of their programme.

All students on the Placement Year as part of their full-time undergraduate study will remain enrolled with the University during the period of placement and receive support. Students originally enrolled on 3-year programmes wishing to transfer to the 4-year programme must do so before the start of their placement, should gain the consent of their funders, where appropriate, and advise the University of their intention before the September enrolment.

Module Overview

This module aims to provide an introduction to the basics of Latin for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can gain the ability to translate and interpret sentences and short passages in prose and verse with confidence. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.

Module Overview

This module aims to provide a continued introduction to the basics of Latin for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can refine their ability to translate and interpret sentences and short to medium-length passages in prose and verse up to advanced difficulty. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.

Module Overview

This module examines key British medieval texts, primarily in Middle English, from the High and Late Middle Ages (that is, from approximately the twelfth century to fifteenth century). It explores the breadth of literary activity in the period through a variety of genres--such as debate poetry, ethnographies, beast fables, romance, dream visions, satire, devotional and mystical writings, and mystery plays--and the evolution of a new form of English (the precursor of modern English), revealing that the medieval period is, in truth, a far cry from the misnomer by which it is often identified, the ‘dark ages’.

Module Overview

Metaphysics is often described as the study of the most fundamental nature of reality. It asks not only what sort of basic entities exist, but also what existence itself is and whether there might be things in the world that do not exist. These are the kinds of questions we will investigate in this module. Examples topics that we might consider include time, space, laws of nature, causation, change, objects, properties, and possibility.

Module Overview

The purpose of this module is to develop students understanding of some of the major issues in contemporary philosophy of mind and artificial intelligence. What kind of entity is the mind? How does it relate to the brain? Can we explain consciousness in physical terms? Could a machine ever be conscious? Are we headed for the Singularity—the point in the future at which machine intelligence overtakes human intelligence and goes on to design exponentially more intelligent machines? If so, how intelligent can machine intelligence get? Where does the mind stop and machinery start? For example, could a neural implant or even a smartphone form part of your mind? Are we ourselves thinking machines?

Module Overview

This module aims to introduce students to some of the central concepts, issues, theories, and debates in an area of moral philosophy called "normative ethics", thereby providing them with a framework for thinking seriously about moral matters, and to assist them in developing their philosophical and analytical skills. We will distinguish and evaluate the leading positions on these issues through a range of more specific topics in normative ethics.

Module Overview

Friedrich Nietzsche famously proclaimed that ‘the death of God’ would lead to a period of ‘nihilism’ – the view that life lacks meaning and value. But Nietzsche also saw the death of God as a liberating opportunity to move beyond traditional moral values, which he regarded as life-denying and stifling the potential of human beings.

A central aim of Nietzsche’s philosophy, therefore, is to make his readers question the value of traditional morality. Are kindness, compassion, altruism, charity, and equality really valuable? Do such values promote the cultivation of great cultures and great human beings? Or are they simply what is most useful to, what Nietzsche called, ‘the herd’? All the major themes of Nietzsche’s philosophy will be considered: art, tragedy, ‘genealogy,’ master and slave moralities, guilt, truth, self-creation, the Übermensch (or ‘superman’), the ‘higher’ individual, life-affirmation, and eternal recurrence.

Module Overview

A paradox arises when a collection of seemingly plausible claims lead to an absurd conclusion. For example, it seems true that if two people differ in height by just one millionth of a millimetre, then if one of them is tall, so is the other. However, this apparently logically entails that if anyone is tall, everyone is tall, which is absurd. (This is an example of the so called Sorites paradox.) Because paradoxes have this nature, they force us to reexamine things we take to be true. They are thus very valuable for improving our understanding of the world. In this module we will examine a number of paradoxes relating to different aspects of the world, such as time, movement, inquiry, and truth, hopefully gaining insights related to all these topics along the way.

Module Overview

This module provides an introduction to the major issues in contemporary philosophy of artificial intelligence. Students will explore the ethical challenges posed by current AI systems, including concerns about bias, transparency, and their impact on labor markets and society. They will examine speculative and existential questions about aligning AI with human values, preventing catastrophic misuse, and predicting AI's future role in human enhancement. The course also examines profound theoretical questions, such as the potential for moral agency and consciousness in AI, and the role of AI in personal relationships. This module equips students with the philosophical tools to critically analyze the most transformative technology of our time.

Module Overview

This modules addresses the phenomenon of love through the lens of some of the greatest works in the Western philosophical tradition. We shall mostly consider reciprocal romantic love and investigate, among other things, its seeming capacity, despite the possibility of loss that is intrinsic to love, to confer meaning and purpose upon life. The module explores the Freudian view that love is essentially a search for security and asks if this search can ever be stably fulfilled or if, like Sartre, we must conclude that it is impossible. Can love be defined, or does it belong to the realm of the ineffable? Is love inherently rational or irrational? Is it reducible to the reproductive or sexual drive? Do we, in essence, love the other for their own sake, or is love always self-serving? Is possessiveness really the enemy of successful love? Does all love stem from need or lack? What, if anything, is the difference between love and infatuation? And is, as Plato held, erotic attachment a form of enslavement? In addition, we will reflect upon a range of other topics, such as sexual objectification, polyamory or ethical non-monogamy, the ethics of causal sex, pornography, sexual desire, sadomasochism, and perversion.

Module Overview

This module introduces students to some of the central questions in the aesthetics of music. We will consider such issues as: What is music? What makes something music rather than just a sequence of sounds? What is it to understand a piece of music? What is the relation between music and emotion? How is it possible for a sequence of sounds to express emotion? What is the value of music? Does music have a special capacity to evoke a sense of the divine ? We will also consider questions pertaining to the critical evaluation of music. For example, do rock and classical music require different aesthetic criteria for their assessment and evaluation? There will be extensive use of diverse musical examples (everything from Bach to Cradle of Filth!) throughout the course.

Module Overview

This module focuses on a range of philosophical questions relating to mental illness and its treatment. What makes a person mentally healthy or mentally unhealthy? What makes a conscious state psychotic or delusional? How might mental disorders be distinguished from non-disordered mental states and conditions? Would certain putative mental illnesses be better characterized as “problems with living” rather than as specifically medical conditions? Should, as per the prevailing tendency in contemporary psychiatry, the subjective experience of individuals suffering from mental illnesses, such as depression and schizophrenia, be understood chiefly in terms of a chemical imbalance, and accordingly treated by an adjustment to brain chemistry? Or should, as per the traditional psychoanalytic view, such conditions be understood as irreducibly tied to internal symbolic content to be decoded by the analyst and patient? We will also consider questions raised by particular psychopathologies. Is psychopathy best understood as a mental illness, and if so, is it appropriate to hold psychopaths responsible for their attitudes and actions? Are certain forms of cognition currently seen as neurological/ neuro-developmental disorders (e.g., autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) better understood as representing diverse or statistically atypical ways in which humans are capable of seeing and interacting with the world? These and other questions will be explored through the lens of recent literature in the analytic tradition as well as seminal texts in the history of the philosophy of mental illness (e.g., Freud, Foucault, R.D. Laing).

Module Overview

This module explores a range of philosophical questions relating to the nature of science. How are scientific theories developed? Are scientific theories discovered through a ‘flash of genius’ or is something more methodical involved? How much of scientific discovery is down to careful observation? Do scientific theories tell us how the world really is? Do the entities scientific theories postulate – atoms, electromagnetic waves, and so on – really exist? Or are scientific theories merely useful models of reality? Is science independent of its social context? To what extent is scientific inquiry affected by gender, race or politics? Is there such a thing as truth that is not relative to a particular culture, social class or historical era? Drawing on accessible examples from a variety of scientific fields and by answering these and related questions, we shall try to reach an understanding of how science works.

Module Overview

From immigration raids and street-level protests to contested foreign interventions and the global rise of far-right populism, the United States is currently living through a period of overlapping political crises. Federal immigration enforcement in cities like Minneapolis has provoked widespread public protest and legal challenges, raising urgent questions about state violence, civil liberties, and the reach of executive power. At the same time, instability in places such as Venezuela, and the role of the United States within it, has reignited debates about presidential authority in foreign policy and the legacy of American interventionism. These moments are not isolated events, but flashpoints in a much longer struggle over power, legitimacy, and democracy. This course helps you make sense of the crises of the present by placing them in historical context.

Rather than treating contemporary politics as unprecedented chaos, the module traces how modern presidential power was built, expanded, and repeatedly contested across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Focusing especially how we got to the Trump era, the course explores how populism, media ecosystems, racial politics, national security, and economic inequality have reshaped both the presidency and public expectations of leadership.

Module Overview

Students studying Renaissance Literature have the opportunity to look in detail at a range of texts from the late Elizabethan period to the mid-1630s, including work by Shakespeare, John Donne, Ben Jonson and Mary Wroth. They also have the chance to explore the historical and cultural contexts in which these texts were produced, and the effects that they had on the politics and culture of the British Isles in the period. Lectures aim to examine post-Reformation England and late humanism, patronage, gender relations, early modern literary theory, education and philosophy.

Module Overview

This module explores the history of sport in the modern world from the eighteenth century to the present. Sport both shapes and is shaped by modern society and the global expansion of sports across the world and professionalization have led to certain sports becoming the economic powerhouses of today. Sport has played an important role in nation-building in the last two hundred years, and sports teams continue to be significant markers of identity at local, regional and national levels. This module will also explore the impact of global phenomena, such as imperialism which spread certain sports to particular areas of the world. Topics will range from the local to the global, drawing on the colleagues' specialisms, including examples from modern Britain and Europe, the Caribbean, South Asia and East Asia. Sports discussed will include major global sports such as association football, cricket and rugby, but also hockey, racing, athletics and gymnastics.

Major events such as the Olympics will be considered alongside more focused examples to allow us to explore themes including class, gender, nation, identity and race, and their intersection.

Module Overview

This module provides an opportunity for History students to spend a term studying at one of the University’s partner institutions in North America or Europe. Students will be expected to cover their own transport, accommodation and living costs.

Module Overview

Teaching History deepens students' understanding of the practice of teaching history in the classroom. The module encourages students, especially but not exclusively those who may be considering a career in education (or related industries), to think more deeply about pedagogic theory and teaching practice. Students will be given the opportunity to gain some practical experience in instructing their peers and online audiences. There will be a strong focus on reflecting on prior learning experiences and the module will begin by providing students with an overview of the history of history teaching. History teaching will be examined at primary and secondary level, and in other educational contexts.

Module Overview

This module examines Arthurian narratives, myths, and traditions within a variety of contexts and media, and traces a variety of themes associated with Arthur and his court, including history and national identity; violence; kingship and rule; loyalty and betrayal; and love, sex, and gender roles.

Students will be expected to assess the importance of a myth that spans more than a millennium and address how medieval texts made meaning within their specific socio-cultural situations, as well as how later periods make meaning through their deployment of the medieval in new contexts.

Module Overview

Language enables us to communicate about ourselves and the world around us. However, it is not clear how language achieves this nor is it clear what influence language has on these activities. Therefore, in this module we will examine language itself. We will try to clarify its nature and how it works.

Module Overview

It appears that everything we do or think is in time. We live temporal lives. However, it is not entirely clear quite what the nature of time is, nor how it bears on our lives. Therefore, in this module we will investigate time itself. As will become clear in these investigations, a proper understanding of time, requires reflection on various aspects of ourselves and our environments.

Module Overview

This module explores the social, political and cultural realities shaped and framed by holy wars during the Middle Ages, with a primary focus on the Mediterranean (ca. 600-1200). We will explore and question the concept of holy wars from both Christian and Muslim perspectives, considering also the Byzantine responses to Jihad. Among the different locations under consideration in this module and linked to the framework of Crusades, we will focus on two zones of encounters and conflicts between Islam and Christianity: the Iberian Peninsula and the South of Italy. Beyond this, we will explore the eastern shores of the Mediterranean by focusing on the struggle for the dominion of the holy city of Jerusalem.

This module will help students develop a broad set of critical and analytical skills, while engaging with a variety of textual, visual and material sources. Students will gain an understanding of how the interplay of social, religious, political and cultural phenomena contributed to shaping a complex world – that of the crusades – which was more diverse and multilayered than some later historiographical representations might suggest.

Module Overview

Ever wondered how philosophers use imaginary scenarios to tackle life's biggest questions? This module explores one of philosophy's most powerful tools: the thought experiment. From ancient Greek paradoxes to modern philosophical puzzles about consciousness, personal identity, and ethics, thought experiments have helped shape our understanding of fundamental questions about reality, knowledge, and human nature. Through a blend of analysis and creative practice, you'll learn how to dissect classic thought experiments and craft your own philosophical scenarios. You'll develop valuable critical thinking skills while exploring how philosophers use imagination to test ideas and challenge assumptions. Working collaboratively with peers, you'll move from analyzing famous thought experiments to developing your own original philosophical tools. Suitable for students interested in philosophical methodology, creative thinking, and the art of argument. This module offers a unique opportunity to develop both analytical and creative skills that are valuable not just in philosophy, but in any field requiring clear thinking and imaginative problem-solving. Assessment through a critical analysis essay and a portfolio of original thought experiments, allowing you to demonstrate both analytical and creative abilities.

Module Overview

This module builds on the first-year module ‘What is Knowledge?’ to provide students with a more in-depth exploration of epistemology. Students can examine a range of issues in contemporary epistemology, including: the nature of epistemic justification (the internalism/externalism debate, the debates between foundationalists and coherentists), the analysis of knowledge, the role of contextual considerations in dealing with scepticism, social epistemology, virtue epistemology, a priori knowledge, and epistemic naturalism.

Module Overview

This module introduces students to philosophical questions about the nature of art and beauty. For example: What is art? Can anything be a work of art? Can a pile of elephant dung be art? Is beauty objectively real or only ‘in the eye of the beholder’? Can aesthetic judgements be right or wrong? Is Beethoven better than Beyoncé? Is Shakespeare better than Eastenders? Or are aesthetic disputes like deciding between the merits of different flavours of ice cream?

Students can also consider questions that arise in relation to specific artforms: How is it possible to respond emotionally towards the plight of fictional characters that are known not to exist? Do rock/pop music and classical music require different aesthetic criteria for their appreciation and evaluation? Why do we take pleasure in the aesthetic representation of tragic events? Students will be guided through their reading of various classical and contemporary works on such issues, and encouraged to think for themselves about the problems addressed.

Module Overview

In the Twentieth Century new aviation technologies transformed understandings of war, peace, civilian and military. The module considers how ideas about air power developed, what informed this understanding of war, and what the consequences were. This is not a traditional military history concerned with narrative accounts of battles or armies, but one that asks questions about the relationship between military and civilian in society and culture in the twentieth century.

Module Overview

This module will give students an opportunity to engage in close philosophical study of texts by the most influential ancient philosophers. Texts will be studied in English translation. They will include works by Plato and Aristotle, as well as by less familiar philosophers of the ancient world (c. 500 BC-500 AD Greece and Rome). The focus of the module will be philosophical, not interpretive or historical: students will be expected assess the credibility of the positions and arguments advanced by Plato, Aristotle and others and to develop their own views in dialogue with these thinkers.

Module Overview

This module gives students the opportunity to build and demonstrate problem-solving skills in the context of applied philosophy. Students will be introduced to the interdisciplinary methods of applied ethics and examine together a series of selected applied ethics case studies, drawn from a variety of different areas including health care, climate justice, AI, beginning and end of life. Students will then work on an individual project which they will present in poster form at the end of the module. The module will give students a thorough grounding in applied ethics and enable them to evidence the key employability skill of problem-solving in the context of applied philosophy.

Module Overview

This module examines both the birth and development of the concept of chivalry in the Middle Ages. Students can use a wide range of primary sources, as well as medieval and contemporary historiography, to explore how the role, image and function of medieval knights evolved over time.

Module Overview

This module provides an introduction to Indian philosophy and gives students the opportunity to study some of the classic texts of Indian philosophy in detail. While texts will be studied in English translation students will also gain a familiarity with the elements of classical Indian (principally Sanskrit) philosophical vocabulary. Topics will be drawn from both the astika (orthodox Hindu) schools such as Naya-Vaisheshika and Samkhya-Yoga and nastika schools such as Jainism and Buddhism, and will cover areas such as logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and linguistics.

Module Overview

Clio, the muse of History, had many and diverse children. This module examines both the birth and development of historiography in Ancient Greek Literature. Students will use a wide range of primary sources together with secondary sources and engage with diverse types of writing, ranging from military historians to ethnographers, biographers, geographers, and female historians.

Module Overview

The module will examine consumption in many of its forms in early modern Western Europe. Focusing on a number of areas, such as food, clothing, furnishings, houses and other goods increasingly accessible to people at all levels of society, the module will encourage students to consider how and why these were available.

Module Overview

This module will enable students to engage in the research and development of displays through the process of curating an exhibition for the museum or heritage sector. Students will select objects and structure this selection through an appropriate narrative. They will propose modes and examples of interpretation such as gallery text, audio or visual aids. The emphasis will be on developing knowledge and understanding of the role and responsibilities of the curator, and the project will enable students to evidence a focused and critically rigorous curatorial rationale.

Module Overview

The Early Modern period in philosophy was home to great thinkers such as George Berkeley, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Rene Descartes, David Hume, Gottfried Leibniz, John Locke, and Baruch Spinoza. It also hosted a number of key philosophical divisions, for example, between realism and idealism, rationalism and empiricism, and dualism and monism. In this module we will engage with a number of these writers and positions, exploring various topics within metaphysics and epistemology, and asking questions about ourselves, the world around us, and the relation between the two.

Module Overview

This module aims to provide an introduction to the basics of Greek for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can gain the ability to translate and interpret sentences and short passages in prose and verse up to intermediate difficulty. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.

Module Overview

This module aims to provide a continued introduction to the basics of Greek for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can refine their ability to translate and interpret sentences and short to medium-length passages in prose and verse up to advanced difficulty. This helps develop a foundation for sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.

Module Overview

This module aims to provide a continued introduction to the basics of Latin for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can refine their ability to translate and interpret sentences and short to medium-length passages in prose and verse up to advanced difficulty. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.

Module Overview

Our emotions and our perceptions together make up the bulk of our everyday lived experience. They are amongst the things most familiar to us. Yet, it is possible for them to escape our attention which can instead be on the things given to us through them: we often focus on what is seen, rather than the seeing itself. In this module we will try to shift this focus, investigating emotion and perception themselves. We will investigate questions such as the following. Is an emotion a mere feeling? Can emotions be rational? Are emotions perceptions? Can we perceive things like dogs and cats? What might illusions or hallucinations tell us about perception?

Module Overview

This module explores fundamental questions about humanity's relationship with the natural world through the lens of philosophical inquiry. Drawing on both classical and contemporary thinkers, we examine key debates in environmental ethics, from the intrinsic value of nature to questions of ecological justice and sustainability. Students will critically assess different philosophical approaches to pressing environmental challenges, including climate change and biodiversity loss, while developing sophisticated arguments about environmental responsibility and stewardship. The module combines careful philosophical analysis with practical application, making it relevant for students interested in environmental issues, public policy, or fundamental questions about human-nature relationships. Through thoughtful discussion and analysis, students will be able to develop valuable critical thinking skills while engaging with one of the most significant intellectual challenges of our time.

Module Overview

This module explores the history of science, sexuality and politics in the UK, Continental Europe, the US and Latin America from 1850 to 2000. It will give students an excellent grounding in modern and contemporary history that will complement further modules at level 3 that deal with sexuality, gender, race, science and medicine. It module examines the controversial rise of eugenics movements as a global phenomenon. The purpose of this module is to sustain a balanced and informed discussion about how race, reproduction, and the improvement of human heredity have acquired great political relevance in the modern period. It explores how scientists and different governments became preoccupied with hereditary theories, race, reproduction and sexual behaviour. It examines how societies across the Atlantic developed government policies around areas such as family planning, pronatalism, sterilisation, and race, which culminated in the implementation of euthanasia programmes in Nazi Germany. This module looks at eugenics programmes and politics in a transnational context, exploring how, for example, Nazi Germany’s sterilisation programmes were inspired by those already implemented in the US and how a number of Latin American countries adapted and transformed eugenics policies from Southern Europe and developed whitening policies.

Module Overview

This module explores the various ways in which the world was put on display in the nineteenth century, and with what aims and effects. The nineteenth century was a period during which museums, galleries, exhibitions, zoos and circuses all expanded in numbers and took on distinctive modern forms; it was also one where the ‘freak show’ became both popular but also frowned upon, while optical toys and attractions reformed ‘ways of seeing’.

Module Overview

The aim of this module is to give students a thorough understanding of two intimately related philosophical traditions that came to prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries: existentialism and phenomenology. Each attempts to address the nature and meaning of human existence from the perspective of individual, first-person experience, focusing in particular on fundamental questions of being, meaning, death, nihilism, freedom, responsibility, value, human relations, and religious faith. The module will examine selected existential themes through the writings of thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, De Beauvoir, and Camus. Since existentialism is as much a artistic phenomenon as a philosophical one, students will also be given the opportunity to explore existentialist ideas in the works of various literary figures, such as Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, and Milan Kundera.

Module Overview

The module will give students practical experience of the workplace. Students will normally define, plan and undertake a specific project. In addition students will gain experience of a range of tasks appropriate to sector-specific professional skills.

Module Overview

This module aims to provide an introduction to the basics of Latin for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can gain the ability to translate and interpret sentences and short passages in prose and verse with confidence. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.

Module Overview

This module will analyse how the medicalised body has been represented, exploited, challenged and reclaimed in art and visual culture. The themes, ideas, priorities and objects of medicine – such as death, health, sexuality, taboo, trauma, bodily functions, and viscera – have taken centre stage in art and visual culture since the end of the nineteenth century. This module will explore the manifold ways in which artists have engaged with subjects including medical technologies, anatomies, contagion, disease, disability, psychiatry, blood, and pain, and we will do so in relation to constructions of gender, sexuality, race, class and disability. What significance do pathology, disease, illness narratives and patient experience take on in art and visual culture? To what effects have artists portrayed and perhaps questioned modern therapies and medical technologies, and their subjects, practices and theories? We will focus on a range of media including painting, prints, sculpture, performance art, conceptual art, film, and photography.

Module Overview

The 20th century saw unprecedented social, economic, political and cultural change in Britain. However, the equally dramatic shifts in how sexuality and masculinity were experienced and represented are often ignored. This module aims to enable students to study the history of 20th Century Britain while using the lens of gender and sexuality to understand how ordinary men lived their lives. Students will get the opportunity to work with a wide variety of primary sources such as: court records, newspapers, film, photographs, music, autobiographies, oral history and literature.

Module Overview

This module builds on the second-year module ‘Moral Philosophy’, focusing in particular on the central questions in metaethics: Do moral terms and judgements refer to moral properties, and if so, what are these properties like? Are any moral judgements true, and if so, are they true objectively, in virtue of moral properties that exist in the world? If there are objective moral truths, how can we know what they are? What implications do theories of moral reasoning and moral motivation have for the question of whether there are objective truths in ethics?

Module Overview

Metaphysics is often described as the study of the most fundamental nature of reality. It asks not only what sort of basic entities exist, but also what existence itself is and whether there might be things in the world that do not exist. These are the kinds of questions we will investigate in this module. Examples topics that we might consider include time, space, laws of nature, causation, change, objects, properties, and possibility.

Module Overview

The purpose of this module is to develop students understanding of some of the major issues in contemporary philosophy of mind and artificial intelligence. What kind of entity is the mind? How does it relate to the brain? Can we explain consciousness in physical terms? Could a machine ever be conscious? Are we headed for the Singularity—the point in the future at which machine intelligence overtakes human intelligence and goes on to design exponentially more intelligent machines? If so, how intelligent can machine intelligence get? Where does the mind stop and machinery start? For example, could a neural implant or even a smartphone form part of your mind? Are we ourselves thinking machines?

Module Overview

Friedrich Nietzsche famously proclaimed that ‘the death of God’ would lead to a period of ‘nihilism’ – the view that life lacks meaning and value. But Nietzsche also saw the death of God as a liberating opportunity to move beyond traditional moral values, which he regarded as life-denying and stifling the potential of human beings.

A central aim of Nietzsche’s philosophy, therefore, is to make his readers question the value of traditional morality. Are kindness, compassion, altruism, charity, and equality really valuable? Do such values promote the cultivation of great cultures and great human beings? Or are they simply what is most useful to, what Nietzsche called, ‘the herd’? All the major themes of Nietzsche’s philosophy will be considered: art, tragedy, ‘genealogy,’ master and slave moralities, guilt, truth, self-creation, the Übermensch (or ‘superman’), the ‘higher’ individual, life-affirmation, and eternal recurrence.

Module Overview

This module will investigate the history of imperial Britain through material culture. The objects of study will range from trophies looted in battle and a drum transported with enslaved Africans to Virginia, to African sculpture depicting Europeans. Historians increasingly recognise the fresh insights that objects offer to major themes in imperial history such as gender, race and class. This module responds to these new academic developments and will use objects and their biographies to study key phases and themes in the history of the British Empire. Tracing the long history of such objects can enable us to explore how objects change meanings as they move through various colonial and post-colonial contexts.

Module Overview

A paradox arises when a collection of seemingly plausible claims lead to an absurd conclusion. For example, it seems true that if two people differ in height by just one millionth of a millimetre, then if one of them is tall, so is the other. However, this apparently logically entails that if anyone is tall, everyone is tall, which is absurd. (This is an example of the so called Sorites paradox.) Because paradoxes have this nature, they force us to reexamine things we take to be true. They are thus very valuable for improving our understanding of the world. In this module we will examine a number of paradoxes relating to different aspects of the world, such as time, movement, inquiry, and truth, hopefully gaining insights related to all these topics along the way.

Module Overview

This module provides an introduction to the major issues in contemporary philosophy of artificial intelligence. Students will explore the ethical challenges posed by current AI systems, including concerns about bias, transparency, and their impact on labor markets and society. They will examine speculative and existential questions about aligning AI with human values, preventing catastrophic misuse, and predicting AI's future role in human enhancement. The course also examines profound theoretical questions, such as the potential for moral agency and consciousness in AI, and the role of AI in personal relationships. This module equips students with the philosophical tools to critically analyze the most transformative technology of our time.

Module Overview

This module explores a variety of questions relating to the concept of evil, and introduces students to a range of philosophical theories of the nature of evil. Students can explore the language and ontology of evil, the concepts of ‘radical’ and ‘banal’ evil, and examine how the existence of evil is accounted for by key figures in the history of philosophy. Typically, questions to be considered include: Is evil an irreducibly theological concept? Are notions of evil relative to individuals or cultures? Is evil a positively existing force or is it the absence of some quality, as darkness is the absence of light? Why are humans capable of wickedness?

Module Overview

This module explores a range of philosophical questions that arise in relation to love and sexual desire. Can love be defined, or does it belong to the realm of the ineffable? Is love inherently irrational? Is it reducible to the reproductive or sexual drive? Do we love the other for his/her own sake, or is love always self-serving? Are jealousy and possessiveness really the enemy of successful love? Does all love stem from need or lack? What, if anything, is the difference between love and infatuation? And is, as Plato held, love a form of enslavement?

In this module, students can address such questions through the lens of some of the greatest works in the Western philosophical tradition. We shall mostly consider reciprocal romantic love and investigate, among other things, its capacity to confer meaning and purpose upon life. We shall also explore the Freudian view that love involves regression to a situation in childhood in which we were perfectly safe, the search for love essentially being an attempt to recover this earlier form of security or wholeness. Can this need for wholeness ever be fully and stably fulfilled, or is, as Sartre argued, the project of love impossible? In addition, we shall reflect upon the nature of pornography, sadomasochism, and sexual perversion.

Module Overview

This module introduces students to some of the central questions in the aesthetics of music. We will consider such issues as: What is music? What makes something music rather than just a sequence of sounds? What is it to understand a piece of music? What is the relation between music and emotion? How is it possible for a sequence of sounds to express emotion? What is the value of music? Does music have a special capacity to evoke a sense of the divine ? We will also consider questions pertaining to the critical evaluation of music. For example, do rock and classical music require different aesthetic criteria for their assessment and evaluation? There will be extensive use of diverse musical examples (everything from Bach to Cradle of Filth!) throughout the course.

Module Overview

This module focuses on a range of philosophical questions relating to mental illness and its treatment. What makes a person mentally healthy or mentally unhealthy? What makes a conscious state psychotic or delusional? How might mental disorders be distinguished from non-disordered mental states and conditions? Would certain putative mental illnesses be better characterized as “problems with living” rather than as specifically medical conditions? Should, as per the prevailing tendency in contemporary psychiatry, the subjective experience of individuals suffering from mental illnesses, such as depression and schizophrenia, be understood chiefly in terms of a chemical imbalance, and accordingly treated by an adjustment to brain chemistry? Or should, as per the traditional psychoanalytic view, such conditions be understood as irreducibly tied to internal symbolic content to be decoded by the analyst and patient? We will also consider questions raised by particular psychopathologies. Is psychopathy best understood as a mental illness, and if so, is it appropriate to hold psychopaths responsible for their attitudes and actions? Are certain forms of cognition currently seen as neurological/ neuro-developmental disorders (e.g., autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) better understood as representing diverse or statistically atypical ways in which humans are capable of seeing and interacting with the world? These and other questions will be explored through the lens of recent literature in the analytic tradition as well as seminal texts in the history of the philosophy of mental illness (e.g., Freud, Foucault, R.D. Laing).

Module Overview

In this module you will learn how scientific knowledge evolves and what makes it distinctive. Through analysis of various scientific fields, you will explore how theories develop - from careful observation to conceptual breakthroughs - and examine whether scientific theories reveal fundamental truths about reality. The module investigates whether theoretical constructs like atoms and electromagnetic waves represent physical reality or serve as sophisticated models. You will critically evaluate how social and cultural contexts, including gender, politics, and historical circumstances, influence scientific inquiry, while examining the possibility of objective scientific truth.

Module Overview

How can history and heritage be more inclusive of LGBTIQ+ lives and experiences? And how can queer perspectives help us to better understand the complexities of the past? This module responds to these questions by examining queer histories from the Ancient World to the present day. Taking a global view, the module investigates how concepts such as sex, sexuality, gender, the body, friendship, and family have been organised in diverse ways across different times and places. In addition to considering how particular sexual and gender identities have emerged, the module also engages with ideas of queer history as a method for historical enquiry: one that is sceptical about binary analyses and linear narratives of progress.

Module Overview

What did liberty mean in an age of kings and queens, and just how revolutionary were the political ideas of Tudor and Stuart Britain? This module introduces students to the key approaches and methodologies of the ‘history of ideas’ by exploring how scholars have studied radical political and religious thought in early modern Britain. Covering over 200 years of British history (1485–1714), students will examine the major events of the Tudor and Stuart reigns and engage with the writings of some of the period’s most influential thinkers, including Thomas More, John Milton, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke, alongside works of literature and visual culture. Ultimately, the module encourages students to reflect on how debates about liberty, authority, and resistance in Tudor and Stuart Britain continue to resonate far beyond the early modern period.

Module Overview

Teaching History deepens students' understanding of the practice of teaching history in the classroom. The module encourages students, especially but not exclusively those who may be considering a career in education (or related industries), to think more deeply about pedagogic theory and teaching practice in History. Students will be given the opportunity to gain some practical experience in instructing their peers and online audiences. There will be a strong focus on reflecting on prior learning experiences and the module will begin by providing students with an overview of the history of history teaching. History teaching will be examined at primary and secondary level, and in other educational contexts.

Module Overview

This module aims to examine how living in cities shaped the ways our lives and society have developed since the 19th Century. In the early 19th Century the population of Europe largely lived in rural settlements, yet 100 years later the populations of Western Europe's cities had exploded. Cities produced new forms of social organisation: for the first time drag queens and prostitutes rubbed shoulders with housewives, the rich discovered the poor on their very doorsteps and the unregulated spaces of cities became havens for counter-cultures, deviant sexualities and radical politics.

Module Overview

This module, ‘The Internet: A Social and Cultural History,’ examines how ordinary people experienced the internet in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Using a social and cultural history approach, we will move beyond histories of technological innovators to instead examine how a range of people embraced the internet within their daily lives, navigated multiplying ‘search’ platforms, made decisions around associated hardware like the iphone, and also grappled with new understandings of surveillance in the early 21st century. Central to the module will be a consideration of the methodologies historians can use to provide histories of internet spaces, activities, and events.

Module Overview

Language enables us to communicate about ourselves and the world around us. However, it is not clear how language achieves this nor is it clear what influence language has on these activities. Therefore, in this module we will examine language itself. We will try to clarify its nature and how it works.

Module Overview

It appears that everything we do or think is in time. We live temporal lives. However, it is not entirely clear quite what the nature of time is, nor how it bears on our lives. Therefore, in this module we will investigate time itself. As will become clear in these investigations, a proper understanding of time, requires reflection on various aspects of ourselves and our environments.

Module Overview

This module examines how African Americans tried to cast off the economic, political, cultural and social ties that bound them to second-class citizenship within the United States. We primarily focus on the Southern version of the black freedom struggle before casting our attention to a wider American political, social, and racial context — particularly as we challenge “the master narrative” of the civil rights movement that was once presented and represented as the singular history of the movement for African American freedom.

In charting the course of the civil rights movement in the twentieth century and beyond, we analyse the most venerated events and personalities of the era and aim to understand the movement on its own terms. We will explore its richness and its internal complexities, especially when reviewing the varying tactics and ideological differences of the movement’s leaders. The module asks us to question the presumed victories of the civil rights movement, to stretch our chronological understanding beyond traditional beginnings and endings, to acknowledge the complexity of American racial identity, and reveal what it tells us about the wider political and social dimensions of modern US history.

Module Overview

Ever wondered how philosophers use imaginary scenarios to tackle life's biggest questions? This module explores one of philosophy's most powerful tools: the thought experiment. From ancient Greek paradoxes to modern philosophical puzzles about consciousness, personal identity, and ethics, thought experiments have helped shape our understanding of fundamental questions about reality, knowledge, and human nature. Through a blend of analysis and creative practice, you'll learn how to dissect classic thought experiments and craft your own philosophical scenarios. You'll develop valuable critical thinking skills while exploring how philosophers use imagination to test ideas and challenge assumptions. Working collaboratively with peers, you'll move from analyzing famous thought experiments to developing your own original philosophical tools. Suitable for students interested in philosophical methodology, creative thinking, and the art of argument. This module offers a unique opportunity to develop both analytical and creative skills that are valuable not just in philosophy, but in any field requiring clear thinking and imaginative problem-solving. Assessment through a critical analysis essay and a portfolio of original thought experiments, allowing you to demonstrate both analytical and creative abilities.

Module Overview

This module builds on the first-year module ‘What is Knowledge?’ to provide students with a more in-depth exploration of epistemology. Students can examine a range of issues in contemporary epistemology, including: the nature of epistemic justification (the internalism/externalism debate, the debates between foundationalists and coherentists), the analysis of knowledge, the role of contextual considerations in dealing with scepticism, social epistemology, virtue epistemology, a priori knowledge, and epistemic naturalism.

Module Overview

This module will give students an opportunity to engage in close philosophical study of texts by the most influential ancient philosophers. Texts will be studied in English translation. They will include works by Plato and Aristotle, as well as by less familiar philosophers of the ancient world (c. 500 BC-500 AD Greece and Rome). The focus of the module will be philosophical, not interpretive or historical: students will be expected assess the credibility of the positions and arguments advanced by Plato, Aristotle and others and to develop their own views in dialogue with these thinkers.

Module Overview

This module gives students the opportunity to build and demonstrate problem-solving skills in the context of applied philosophy. Students will be introduced to the interdisciplinary methods of applied ethics and examine together a series of selected applied ethics case studies, drawn from a variety of different areas including health care, climate justice, AI, beginning and end of life. Students will then work on an individual project which they will present in poster form at the end of the module. The module will give students a thorough grounding in applied ethics and enable them to evidence the key employability skill of problem-solving in the context of applied philosophy.

Module Overview

This module provides an introduction to Indian philosophy and gives students the opportunity to study some of the classic texts of Indian philosophy in detail. While texts will be studied in English translation students can also gain a familiarity with the elements of classical Indian (principally Sanskrit) philosophical vocabulary. Topics will be drawn from both the astika (orthodox Hindu) schools such as Naya-Vaisheshika and Samkhya-Yoga and nastika schools such as Jainism and Buddhism, and will cover areas such as logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and linguistics. The focus of the module will be philosophical, not interpretive or historical. Students will be expected assess the credibility of the positions and arguments advanced by classical Indian thinkers and to develop their own views in dialogue with them.

Module Overview

The Early Modern period in philosophy was home to great thinkers such as George Berkeley, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Rene Descartes, David Hume, Gottfried Leibniz, John Locke, and Baruch Spinoza. It also hosted a number of key philosophical divisions, for example, between realism and idealism, rationalism and empiricism, and dualism and monism. In this module we will engage with a number of these writers and positions, exploring various topics within metaphysics and epistemology, and asking questions about ourselves, the world around us, and the relation between the two.

Module Overview

Our emotions and our perceptions together make up the bulk of our everyday lived experience. They are amongst the things most familiar to us. Yet, it is possible for them to escape our attention which can instead be on the things given to us through them: we often focus on what is seen, rather than the seeing itself. In this module we will try to shift this focus, investigating emotion and perception themselves. We will investigate questions such as the following. Is an emotion a mere feeling? Can emotions be rational? Are emotions perceptions? Can we perceive things like dogs and cats? What might illusions or hallucinations tell us about perception?

Module Overview

This module explores fundamental questions about humanity's relationship with the natural world through the lens of philosophical inquiry. Drawing on both classical and contemporary thinkers, we examine key debates in environmental ethics, from the intrinsic value of nature to questions of ecological justice and sustainability. Students will critically assess different philosophical approaches to pressing environmental challenges, including climate change and biodiversity loss, while developing sophisticated arguments about environmental responsibility and stewardship. The module combines careful philosophical analysis with practical application, making it relevant for students interested in environmental issues, public policy, or fundamental questions about human-nature relationships. Through thoughtful discussion and analysis, students will be able to develop valuable critical thinking skills while engaging with one of the most significant intellectual challenges of our time.

Module Overview

The purpose of this module is to enable students to examine claims made about what, if anything, makes life meaningful by some of the major figures in the history of philosophy (e.g., Plato, Aristotle, St Augustine, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Marx). The module begins by considering the Question of Meaning itself. Is it intelligible? What is it to seek meaning in life? Is God necessary for life as a whole to have meaning? If so, and if God doesn’t exist, what is an appropriate response to life’s “absurdity” or lack of meaning? Is suicide an ethically defensible response? Or can individual lives have meaning even if life as a whole has none? Could a life be meaningful even if it were entirely occupied with selfish or vicious activities? Could, for example, the life of a torturer be meaningful? Or must our lives have an ethical resonance to be meaningful? We will also consider nihilist views that the conditions necessary for meaning do not obtain, and metaethical debates about the nature of value in general.

Module Overview

The aim of this module is to give students a thorough understanding of two intimately related philosophical traditions that came to prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries: existentialism and phenomenology. Each attempts to address the nature and meaning of human existence from the perspective of individual, first-person experience, focusing in particular on fundamental questions of being, meaning, death, nihilism, freedom, responsibility, value, human relations, and religious faith.

The module will examine selected existential themes through the writings of thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, De Beauvoir, and Camus. Since existentialism is as much a artistic phenomenon as a philosophical one, students will also be given the opportunity to explore existentialist ideas in the works of various literary figures, such as Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, and Milan Kundera.

Module Overview

Explore a wide range of cutting-edge digital approaches to studying the past through a significant and growing area of research, the digital humanities. By studying this module, you can focus on developing the practical skills, techniques, and methodologies that can play a vital role in your future studies and career.

The module provides opportunities to enhance, analyse, and interpret humanistic endeavours through approaches such as social network analysis, digital mapping, data visualisation, and textual analysis. You can also explore the impact and potential of artificial intelligence on the study of humanities in the digital worlds.

Module Overview

The University has a strong commitment to providing academic programmes with high vocational relevance, which is maintained through working links with local, national and international organisations and, in particular, through student work placements.

The Placement Year aims to give students a continuous experience of full-time work within an organisation. It should be a three-way co-operative activity between employer, student and University from which all parties benefit. It is more than simply obtaining work during a gap in study – work placements should enable students to experience at first hand the daily workings of an organisation while setting that experience in the broader context of their studies.

The Placement Year constitutes a work placement during an academic year, funded by full-time paid employment* taking place between Level 2 and Level 3. The minimum duration of placement is 39 weeks.

Students wishing to undertake the work placement year must successfully complete the Level 2 of their programme.

All students on the Placement Year as part of their full-time undergraduate study will remain enrolled with the University during the period of placement and receive support. Students originally enrolled on 3-year programmes wishing to transfer to the 4-year programme must do so before the start of their placement, should gain the consent of their funders, where appropriate, and advise the University of their intention before the September enrolment.

Module Overview

This module aims to provide an introduction to the basics of Latin for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can gain the ability to translate and interpret sentences and short passages in prose and verse with confidence. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.

Module Overview

Metaphysics is often described as the study of the most fundamental nature of reality. It asks not only what sort of basic entities exist, but also what existence itself is and whether there might be things in the world that do not exist. These are the kinds of questions we will investigate in this module. Examples topics that we might consider include time, space, laws of nature, causation, change, objects, properties, and possibility.

Module Overview

The purpose of this module is to develop students understanding of some of the major issues in contemporary philosophy of mind and artificial intelligence. What kind of entity is the mind? How does it relate to the brain? Can we explain consciousness in physical terms? Could a machine ever be conscious? Are we headed for the Singularity—the point in the future at which machine intelligence overtakes human intelligence and goes on to design exponentially more intelligent machines? If so, how intelligent can machine intelligence get? Where does the mind stop and machinery start? For example, could a neural implant or even a smartphone form part of your mind? Are we ourselves thinking machines?

Module Overview

This module aims to introduce students to some of the central concepts, issues, theories, and debates in an area of moral philosophy called "normative ethics", thereby providing them with a framework for thinking seriously about moral matters, and to assist them in developing their philosophical and analytical skills. We will distinguish and evaluate the leading positions on these issues through a range of more specific topics in normative ethics.

Module Overview

Friedrich Nietzsche famously proclaimed that ‘the death of God’ would lead to a period of ‘nihilism’ – the view that life lacks meaning and value. But Nietzsche also saw the death of God as a liberating opportunity to move beyond traditional moral values, which he regarded as life-denying and stifling the potential of human beings.

A central aim of Nietzsche’s philosophy, therefore, is to make his readers question the value of traditional morality. Are kindness, compassion, altruism, charity, and equality really valuable? Do such values promote the cultivation of great cultures and great human beings? Or are they simply what is most useful to, what Nietzsche called, ‘the herd’? All the major themes of Nietzsche’s philosophy will be considered: art, tragedy, ‘genealogy,’ master and slave moralities, guilt, truth, self-creation, the Übermensch (or ‘superman’), the ‘higher’ individual, life-affirmation, and eternal recurrence.

Module Overview

A paradox arises when a collection of seemingly plausible claims lead to an absurd conclusion. For example, it seems true that if two people differ in height by just one millionth of a millimetre, then if one of them is tall, so is the other. However, this apparently logically entails that if anyone is tall, everyone is tall, which is absurd. (This is an example of the so called Sorites paradox.) Because paradoxes have this nature, they force us to reexamine things we take to be true. They are thus very valuable for improving our understanding of the world. In this module we will examine a number of paradoxes relating to different aspects of the world, such as time, movement, inquiry, and truth, hopefully gaining insights related to all these topics along the way.

Module Overview

This module provides an introduction to the major issues in contemporary philosophy of artificial intelligence. Students will explore the ethical challenges posed by current AI systems, including concerns about bias, transparency, and their impact on labor markets and society. They will examine speculative and existential questions about aligning AI with human values, preventing catastrophic misuse, and predicting AI's future role in human enhancement. The course also examines profound theoretical questions, such as the potential for moral agency and consciousness in AI, and the role of AI in personal relationships. This module equips students with the philosophical tools to critically analyze the most transformative technology of our time.

Module Overview

This modules addresses the phenomenon of love through the lens of some of the greatest works in the Western philosophical tradition. We shall mostly consider reciprocal romantic love and investigate, among other things, its seeming capacity, despite the possibility of loss that is intrinsic to love, to confer meaning and purpose upon life. The module explores the Freudian view that love is essentially a search for security and asks if this search can ever be stably fulfilled or if, like Sartre, we must conclude that it is impossible. Can love be defined, or does it belong to the realm of the ineffable? Is love inherently rational or irrational? Is it reducible to the reproductive or sexual drive? Do we, in essence, love the other for their own sake, or is love always self-serving? Is possessiveness really the enemy of successful love? Does all love stem from need or lack? What, if anything, is the difference between love and infatuation? And is, as Plato held, erotic attachment a form of enslavement? In addition, we will reflect upon a range of other topics, such as sexual objectification, polyamory or ethical non-monogamy, the ethics of causal sex, pornography, sexual desire, sadomasochism, and perversion.

Module Overview

This module introduces students to some of the central questions in the aesthetics of music. We will consider such issues as: What is music? What makes something music rather than just a sequence of sounds? What is it to understand a piece of music? What is the relation between music and emotion? How is it possible for a sequence of sounds to express emotion? What is the value of music? Does music have a special capacity to evoke a sense of the divine ? We will also consider questions pertaining to the critical evaluation of music. For example, do rock and classical music require different aesthetic criteria for their assessment and evaluation? There will be extensive use of diverse musical examples (everything from Bach to Cradle of Filth!) throughout the course.

Module Overview

This module focuses on a range of philosophical questions relating to mental illness and its treatment. What makes a person mentally healthy or mentally unhealthy? What makes a conscious state psychotic or delusional? How might mental disorders be distinguished from non-disordered mental states and conditions? Would certain putative mental illnesses be better characterized as “problems with living” rather than as specifically medical conditions? Should, as per the prevailing tendency in contemporary psychiatry, the subjective experience of individuals suffering from mental illnesses, such as depression and schizophrenia, be understood chiefly in terms of a chemical imbalance, and accordingly treated by an adjustment to brain chemistry? Or should, as per the traditional psychoanalytic view, such conditions be understood as irreducibly tied to internal symbolic content to be decoded by the analyst and patient? We will also consider questions raised by particular psychopathologies. Is psychopathy best understood as a mental illness, and if so, is it appropriate to hold psychopaths responsible for their attitudes and actions? Are certain forms of cognition currently seen as neurological/ neuro-developmental disorders (e.g., autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) better understood as representing diverse or statistically atypical ways in which humans are capable of seeing and interacting with the world? These and other questions will be explored through the lens of recent literature in the analytic tradition as well as seminal texts in the history of the philosophy of mental illness (e.g., Freud, Foucault, R.D. Laing).

Module Overview

This module explores a range of philosophical questions relating to the nature of science. How are scientific theories developed? Are scientific theories discovered through a ‘flash of genius’ or is something more methodical involved? How much of scientific discovery is down to careful observation? Do scientific theories tell us how the world really is? Do the entities scientific theories postulate – atoms, electromagnetic waves, and so on – really exist? Or are scientific theories merely useful models of reality? Is science independent of its social context? To what extent is scientific inquiry affected by gender, race or politics? Is there such a thing as truth that is not relative to a particular culture, social class or historical era? Drawing on accessible examples from a variety of scientific fields and by answering these and related questions, we shall try to reach an understanding of how science works.

Module Overview

This module provides an opportunity for History students to spend a term studying at one of the University’s partner institutions in North America or Europe. Students will be expected to cover their own transport, accommodation and living costs.

Module Overview

Language enables us to communicate about ourselves and the world around us. However, it is not clear how language achieves this nor is it clear what influence language has on these activities. Therefore, in this module we will examine language itself. We will try to clarify its nature and how it works.

Module Overview

It appears that everything we do or think is in time. We live temporal lives. However, it is not entirely clear quite what the nature of time is, nor how it bears on our lives. Therefore, in this module we will investigate time itself. As will become clear in these investigations, a proper understanding of time, requires reflection on various aspects of ourselves and our environments.

Module Overview

Ever wondered how philosophers use imaginary scenarios to tackle life's biggest questions? This module explores one of philosophy's most powerful tools: the thought experiment. From ancient Greek paradoxes to modern philosophical puzzles about consciousness, personal identity, and ethics, thought experiments have helped shape our understanding of fundamental questions about reality, knowledge, and human nature. Through a blend of analysis and creative practice, you'll learn how to dissect classic thought experiments and craft your own philosophical scenarios. You'll develop valuable critical thinking skills while exploring how philosophers use imagination to test ideas and challenge assumptions. Working collaboratively with peers, you'll move from analyzing famous thought experiments to developing your own original philosophical tools. Suitable for students interested in philosophical methodology, creative thinking, and the art of argument. This module offers a unique opportunity to develop both analytical and creative skills that are valuable not just in philosophy, but in any field requiring clear thinking and imaginative problem-solving. Assessment through a critical analysis essay and a portfolio of original thought experiments, allowing you to demonstrate both analytical and creative abilities.

Module Overview

This module builds on the first-year module ‘What is Knowledge?’ to provide students with a more in-depth exploration of epistemology. Students can examine a range of issues in contemporary epistemology, including: the nature of epistemic justification (the internalism/externalism debate, the debates between foundationalists and coherentists), the analysis of knowledge, the role of contextual considerations in dealing with scepticism, social epistemology, virtue epistemology, a priori knowledge, and epistemic naturalism.

Module Overview

This module introduces students to philosophical questions about the nature of art and beauty. For example: What is art? Can anything be a work of art? Can a pile of elephant dung be art? Is beauty objectively real or only ‘in the eye of the beholder’? Can aesthetic judgements be right or wrong? Is Beethoven better than Beyoncé? Is Shakespeare better than Eastenders? Or are aesthetic disputes like deciding between the merits of different flavours of ice cream?

Students can also consider questions that arise in relation to specific artforms: How is it possible to respond emotionally towards the plight of fictional characters that are known not to exist? Do rock/pop music and classical music require different aesthetic criteria for their appreciation and evaluation? Why do we take pleasure in the aesthetic representation of tragic events? Students will be guided through their reading of various classical and contemporary works on such issues, and encouraged to think for themselves about the problems addressed.

Module Overview

This module will give students an opportunity to engage in close philosophical study of texts by the most influential ancient philosophers. Texts will be studied in English translation. They will include works by Plato and Aristotle, as well as by less familiar philosophers of the ancient world (c. 500 BC-500 AD Greece and Rome). The focus of the module will be philosophical, not interpretive or historical: students will be expected assess the credibility of the positions and arguments advanced by Plato, Aristotle and others and to develop their own views in dialogue with these thinkers.

Module Overview

This module gives students the opportunity to build and demonstrate problem-solving skills in the context of applied philosophy. Students will be introduced to the interdisciplinary methods of applied ethics and examine together a series of selected applied ethics case studies, drawn from a variety of different areas including health care, climate justice, AI, beginning and end of life. Students will then work on an individual project which they will present in poster form at the end of the module. The module will give students a thorough grounding in applied ethics and enable them to evidence the key employability skill of problem-solving in the context of applied philosophy.

Module Overview

This module will explore the different schools of thought and the political activities of the various groups and individuals that comprised the anarchist movement. Anarchism is a political doctrine based on freedom, egalitarianism and social justice and that developed in Europe as a political movement in the mid-XIX century. Anarchism never reached the ascendancy achieved by liberalism or communism; however, it had a significant influence on the political ideas, social movements, culture, and education of the international labour movement.

Module Overview

This module provides an introduction to Indian philosophy and gives students the opportunity to study some of the classic texts of Indian philosophy in detail. While texts will be studied in English translation students will also gain a familiarity with the elements of classical Indian (principally Sanskrit) philosophical vocabulary. Topics will be drawn from both the astika (orthodox Hindu) schools such as Naya-Vaisheshika and Samkhya-Yoga and nastika schools such as Jainism and Buddhism, and will cover areas such as logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and linguistics.

Module Overview

The Early Modern period in philosophy was home to great thinkers such as George Berkeley, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Rene Descartes, David Hume, Gottfried Leibniz, John Locke, and Baruch Spinoza. It also hosted a number of key philosophical divisions, for example, between realism and idealism, rationalism and empiricism, and dualism and monism. In this module we will engage with a number of these writers and positions, exploring various topics within metaphysics and epistemology, and asking questions about ourselves, the world around us, and the relation between the two.

Module Overview

This module aims to provide an introduction to the basics of Greek for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can gain the ability to translate and interpret sentences and short passages in prose and verse up to intermediate difficulty. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.

Module Overview

This module aims to provide a continued introduction to the basics of Greek for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can refine their ability to translate and interpret sentences and short to medium-length passages in prose and verse up to advanced difficulty. This helps develop a foundation for sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.

Module Overview

This module aims to provide a continued introduction to the basics of Latin for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can refine their ability to translate and interpret sentences and short to medium-length passages in prose and verse up to advanced difficulty. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.

Module Overview

Our emotions and our perceptions together make up the bulk of our everyday lived experience. They are amongst the things most familiar to us. Yet, it is possible for them to escape our attention which can instead be on the things given to us through them: we often focus on what is seen, rather than the seeing itself. In this module we will try to shift this focus, investigating emotion and perception themselves. We will investigate questions such as the following. Is an emotion a mere feeling? Can emotions be rational? Are emotions perceptions? Can we perceive things like dogs and cats? What might illusions or hallucinations tell us about perception?

Module Overview

This module explores fundamental questions about humanity's relationship with the natural world through the lens of philosophical inquiry. Drawing on both classical and contemporary thinkers, we examine key debates in environmental ethics, from the intrinsic value of nature to questions of ecological justice and sustainability. Students will critically assess different philosophical approaches to pressing environmental challenges, including climate change and biodiversity loss, while developing sophisticated arguments about environmental responsibility and stewardship. The module combines careful philosophical analysis with practical application, making it relevant for students interested in environmental issues, public policy, or fundamental questions about human-nature relationships. Through thoughtful discussion and analysis, students will be able to develop valuable critical thinking skills while engaging with one of the most significant intellectual challenges of our time.

Module Overview

This module explores the history of science, sexuality and politics in the UK, Continental Europe, the US and Latin America from 1850 to 2000. It will give students an excellent grounding in modern and contemporary history that will complement further modules at level 3 that deal with sexuality, gender, race, science and medicine. It module examines the controversial rise of eugenics movements as a global phenomenon. The purpose of this module is to sustain a balanced and informed discussion about how race, reproduction, and the improvement of human heredity have acquired great political relevance in the modern period. It explores how scientists and different governments became preoccupied with hereditary theories, race, reproduction and sexual behaviour. It examines how societies across the Atlantic developed government policies around areas such as family planning, pronatalism, sterilisation, and race, which culminated in the implementation of euthanasia programmes in Nazi Germany. This module looks at eugenics programmes and politics in a transnational context, exploring how, for example, Nazi Germany’s sterilisation programmes were inspired by those already implemented in the US and how a number of Latin American countries adapted and transformed eugenics policies from Southern Europe and developed whitening policies.

Module Overview

The aim of this module is to give students a thorough understanding of two intimately related philosophical traditions that came to prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries: existentialism and phenomenology. Each attempts to address the nature and meaning of human existence from the perspective of individual, first-person experience, focusing in particular on fundamental questions of being, meaning, death, nihilism, freedom, responsibility, value, human relations, and religious faith. The module will examine selected existential themes through the writings of thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, De Beauvoir, and Camus. Since existentialism is as much a artistic phenomenon as a philosophical one, students will also be given the opportunity to explore existentialist ideas in the works of various literary figures, such as Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, and Milan Kundera.

Module Overview

The module will give students practical experience of the workplace. Students will normally define, plan and undertake a specific project. In addition students will gain experience of a range of tasks appropriate to sector-specific professional skills.

Module Overview

This module aims to provide an introduction to the basics of Latin for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can gain the ability to translate and interpret sentences and short passages in prose and verse with confidence. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.

Module Overview

The 20th century saw unprecedented social, economic, political and cultural change in Britain. However, the equally dramatic shifts in how sexuality and masculinity were experienced and represented are often ignored. This module aims to enable students to study the history of 20th Century Britain while using the lens of gender and sexuality to understand how ordinary men lived their lives. Students will get the opportunity to work with a wide variety of primary sources such as: court records, newspapers, film, photographs, music, autobiographies, oral history and literature.

Module Overview

This module builds on the second-year module ‘Moral Philosophy’, focusing in particular on the central questions in metaethics: Do moral terms and judgements refer to moral properties, and if so, what are these properties like? Are any moral judgements true, and if so, are they true objectively, in virtue of moral properties that exist in the world? If there are objective moral truths, how can we know what they are? What implications do theories of moral reasoning and moral motivation have for the question of whether there are objective truths in ethics?

Module Overview

Metaphysics is often described as the study of the most fundamental nature of reality. It asks not only what sort of basic entities exist, but also what existence itself is and whether there might be things in the world that do not exist. These are the kinds of questions we will investigate in this module. Examples topics that we might consider include time, space, laws of nature, causation, change, objects, properties, and possibility.

Module Overview

The purpose of this module is to develop students understanding of some of the major issues in contemporary philosophy of mind and artificial intelligence. What kind of entity is the mind? How does it relate to the brain? Can we explain consciousness in physical terms? Could a machine ever be conscious? Are we headed for the Singularity—the point in the future at which machine intelligence overtakes human intelligence and goes on to design exponentially more intelligent machines? If so, how intelligent can machine intelligence get? Where does the mind stop and machinery start? For example, could a neural implant or even a smartphone form part of your mind? Are we ourselves thinking machines?

Module Overview

Friedrich Nietzsche famously proclaimed that ‘the death of God’ would lead to a period of ‘nihilism’ – the view that life lacks meaning and value. But Nietzsche also saw the death of God as a liberating opportunity to move beyond traditional moral values, which he regarded as life-denying and stifling the potential of human beings.

A central aim of Nietzsche’s philosophy, therefore, is to make his readers question the value of traditional morality. Are kindness, compassion, altruism, charity, and equality really valuable? Do such values promote the cultivation of great cultures and great human beings? Or are they simply what is most useful to, what Nietzsche called, ‘the herd’? All the major themes of Nietzsche’s philosophy will be considered: art, tragedy, ‘genealogy,’ master and slave moralities, guilt, truth, self-creation, the Übermensch (or ‘superman’), the ‘higher’ individual, life-affirmation, and eternal recurrence.

Module Overview

A paradox arises when a collection of seemingly plausible claims lead to an absurd conclusion. For example, it seems true that if two people differ in height by just one millionth of a millimetre, then if one of them is tall, so is the other. However, this apparently logically entails that if anyone is tall, everyone is tall, which is absurd. (This is an example of the so called Sorites paradox.) Because paradoxes have this nature, they force us to reexamine things we take to be true. They are thus very valuable for improving our understanding of the world. In this module we will examine a number of paradoxes relating to different aspects of the world, such as time, movement, inquiry, and truth, hopefully gaining insights related to all these topics along the way.

Module Overview

This module provides an introduction to the major issues in contemporary philosophy of artificial intelligence. Students will explore the ethical challenges posed by current AI systems, including concerns about bias, transparency, and their impact on labor markets and society. They will examine speculative and existential questions about aligning AI with human values, preventing catastrophic misuse, and predicting AI's future role in human enhancement. The course also examines profound theoretical questions, such as the potential for moral agency and consciousness in AI, and the role of AI in personal relationships. This module equips students with the philosophical tools to critically analyze the most transformative technology of our time.

Module Overview

This module explores a variety of questions relating to the concept of evil, and introduces students to a range of philosophical theories of the nature of evil. Students can explore the language and ontology of evil, the concepts of ‘radical’ and ‘banal’ evil, and examine how the existence of evil is accounted for by key figures in the history of philosophy. Typically, questions to be considered include: Is evil an irreducibly theological concept? Are notions of evil relative to individuals or cultures? Is evil a positively existing force or is it the absence of some quality, as darkness is the absence of light? Why are humans capable of wickedness?

Module Overview

This module explores a range of philosophical questions that arise in relation to love and sexual desire. Can love be defined, or does it belong to the realm of the ineffable? Is love inherently irrational? Is it reducible to the reproductive or sexual drive? Do we love the other for his/her own sake, or is love always self-serving? Are jealousy and possessiveness really the enemy of successful love? Does all love stem from need or lack? What, if anything, is the difference between love and infatuation? And is, as Plato held, love a form of enslavement?

In this module, students can address such questions through the lens of some of the greatest works in the Western philosophical tradition. We shall mostly consider reciprocal romantic love and investigate, among other things, its capacity to confer meaning and purpose upon life. We shall also explore the Freudian view that love involves regression to a situation in childhood in which we were perfectly safe, the search for love essentially being an attempt to recover this earlier form of security or wholeness. Can this need for wholeness ever be fully and stably fulfilled, or is, as Sartre argued, the project of love impossible? In addition, we shall reflect upon the nature of pornography, sadomasochism, and sexual perversion.

Module Overview

This module introduces students to some of the central questions in the aesthetics of music. We will consider such issues as: What is music? What makes something music rather than just a sequence of sounds? What is it to understand a piece of music? What is the relation between music and emotion? How is it possible for a sequence of sounds to express emotion? What is the value of music? Does music have a special capacity to evoke a sense of the divine ? We will also consider questions pertaining to the critical evaluation of music. For example, do rock and classical music require different aesthetic criteria for their assessment and evaluation? There will be extensive use of diverse musical examples (everything from Bach to Cradle of Filth!) throughout the course.

Module Overview

This module focuses on a range of philosophical questions relating to mental illness and its treatment. What makes a person mentally healthy or mentally unhealthy? What makes a conscious state psychotic or delusional? How might mental disorders be distinguished from non-disordered mental states and conditions? Would certain putative mental illnesses be better characterized as “problems with living” rather than as specifically medical conditions? Should, as per the prevailing tendency in contemporary psychiatry, the subjective experience of individuals suffering from mental illnesses, such as depression and schizophrenia, be understood chiefly in terms of a chemical imbalance, and accordingly treated by an adjustment to brain chemistry? Or should, as per the traditional psychoanalytic view, such conditions be understood as irreducibly tied to internal symbolic content to be decoded by the analyst and patient? We will also consider questions raised by particular psychopathologies. Is psychopathy best understood as a mental illness, and if so, is it appropriate to hold psychopaths responsible for their attitudes and actions? Are certain forms of cognition currently seen as neurological/ neuro-developmental disorders (e.g., autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) better understood as representing diverse or statistically atypical ways in which humans are capable of seeing and interacting with the world? These and other questions will be explored through the lens of recent literature in the analytic tradition as well as seminal texts in the history of the philosophy of mental illness (e.g., Freud, Foucault, R.D. Laing).

Module Overview

In this module you will learn how scientific knowledge evolves and what makes it distinctive. Through analysis of various scientific fields, you will explore how theories develop - from careful observation to conceptual breakthroughs - and examine whether scientific theories reveal fundamental truths about reality. The module investigates whether theoretical constructs like atoms and electromagnetic waves represent physical reality or serve as sophisticated models. You will critically evaluate how social and cultural contexts, including gender, politics, and historical circumstances, influence scientific inquiry, while examining the possibility of objective scientific truth.

Module Overview

Language enables us to communicate about ourselves and the world around us. However, it is not clear how language achieves this nor is it clear what influence language has on these activities. Therefore, in this module we will examine language itself. We will try to clarify its nature and how it works.

Module Overview

It appears that everything we do or think is in time. We live temporal lives. However, it is not entirely clear quite what the nature of time is, nor how it bears on our lives. Therefore, in this module we will investigate time itself. As will become clear in these investigations, a proper understanding of time, requires reflection on various aspects of ourselves and our environments.

Module Overview

Ever wondered how philosophers use imaginary scenarios to tackle life's biggest questions? This module explores one of philosophy's most powerful tools: the thought experiment. From ancient Greek paradoxes to modern philosophical puzzles about consciousness, personal identity, and ethics, thought experiments have helped shape our understanding of fundamental questions about reality, knowledge, and human nature. Through a blend of analysis and creative practice, you'll learn how to dissect classic thought experiments and craft your own philosophical scenarios. You'll develop valuable critical thinking skills while exploring how philosophers use imagination to test ideas and challenge assumptions. Working collaboratively with peers, you'll move from analyzing famous thought experiments to developing your own original philosophical tools. Suitable for students interested in philosophical methodology, creative thinking, and the art of argument. This module offers a unique opportunity to develop both analytical and creative skills that are valuable not just in philosophy, but in any field requiring clear thinking and imaginative problem-solving. Assessment through a critical analysis essay and a portfolio of original thought experiments, allowing you to demonstrate both analytical and creative abilities.

Module Overview

This module builds on the first-year module ‘What is Knowledge?’ to provide students with a more in-depth exploration of epistemology. Students can examine a range of issues in contemporary epistemology, including: the nature of epistemic justification (the internalism/externalism debate, the debates between foundationalists and coherentists), the analysis of knowledge, the role of contextual considerations in dealing with scepticism, social epistemology, virtue epistemology, a priori knowledge, and epistemic naturalism.