Modules

Year 1 In the first year, you will take the Philosophy core modules of Ethics and Values, and Knowledge and Reality. These concern the two broad divisions of Philosophy, into Metaphysics and Theory of Knowledge on the one hand, and Moral Philosophy on the other. You will also take either Science, Medicine, and Society, European Philosophy or Reading Philosophy. Reading Philosophy is a text-based course which examines in depth classic works by writers such as Plato, Hume, Murdoch and Sartre. In Psychology, you will take a number of comparable core modules. Years 2 and 3 In the second year, you will take Philosophy of Mind. In the second and third years, you will also have a choice of a wide range of topics. In previous years these have included: Moral Theory Modern Philosophy I and II History of Science and Medicine Issues in Contemporary Ethics Philosophy of Religion Political and Social Philosophy Metaphysics Language, Logic and Reality Twentieth Century European Philosophy Philosophy of Science The Philosophy of Economics and Politics: Theory, Methods and Values Applied Ethics Philosophical Issues in Contemporary Science History and Philosophy of Psychiatry Biomedical Ethics Past and Present. There is a comparable choice within Psychology. You will also have the opportunity to study a subject in depth, by writing a substantial dissertation of your choice. Philosophy and Psychology students may wish to take advantage of the Philosophy Department’s special expertise in the history and philosophy of science. The study of the history of science involves looking at the development of science as the way of explaining events in the natural world, and considering it critically as a belief system in relation to other belief systems and dogmas. The study of the philosophy of science raises philosophical questions about scientific method and about the various metaphysical assumptions upon which scientific theories depend. Philosophy of Mind is also a subject of cross-disciplinary importance, in which philosophers often engage with contemporary developments in Psychology.