PHILOSOPHY

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Professor C Wilson

Pre-requisites

None

Co-requisites

None

Overview

The course will introduce students to the main normative moral theories and
will critically engage with some fundamental questions in moral philosophy.
Are there obligations binding on everyone, or is morality relative to culture? Is
the goal of ethics a happy life or something completely different? Writers
studied will include Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Mill, Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Rawls
and Nussbaum.

Structure

2 one-hour lectures per week and 1 one-hour tutorial per fortnight.

Assessment

1st attempt: Eight essays of 200 words each (50%); one 2-hour examination (50%).

Resit: Maximum of two make-up essays of 200 words each (50%); one 2 hour examination (50%).

Formative Assessment

Fortnightly tutorial discussions provide students with regular opportunities to check their progress in understanding.

Feedback

Written feedback provided timeously on course essay; weekly tutorial discussions.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

TBC

Pre-requisites

None

Overview

The course will introduce students to key concepts in informal reasoning and formal logic. In particular, the former component will include identifying argument structure and common logical fallacies in everyday discourse. The latter component will include methods in first-order propositional logic (formal proofs, truth trees, truth tables).

Structure

2 one-hour lectures plus 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (100%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (100%).

Feedback

Students can consult exam scripts.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr L Moretti and Dr U Stegmann

Pre-requisites

None.

Co-requisites

None.

Overview

This course gives an introduction to two closely connected core fields of Philosophy: the theory of knowledge and of mind. We will examine a number of interrelated issues concerning the nature of mind, its relations to the physical world, and the way in which the mind shapes our conception of ourselves as persons. Is the mind separate from the physical world? Is it a non-physical soul that could survive bodily death? Or is the mind really nothing over and above the brain? Could things other than persons have minds? We will also address problems in the field of epistemology, which is concerned with what it is to know something. For example, how does knowledge differ from a lucky guess? What sorts of methods lead us to genuine knowledge rather than unreliable opinion? And, in an issue that has often been raised by philosophers, do we really know anything at all? There are initially plausible arguments that seem to show we can never know anything: examining what, if anything is wrong with these arguments will, hopefully, help us to see what knowledge really is and why it is important. We will focus on a number of particularly puzzling topics: justification, knowledge of the external world, induction, a priori knowledge.

Structure

2 one-hour lectures plus 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: one 1,500 word essay (50%) and 1 two-hour written examination (50%).

Resit: One 1500 word essay (50%) plus 1 two-hour written examination (50%). Original essay mark carried forward if CAS 6 or above. New essay to be submitted if original essay CAS 5 or below.

Feedback

The students will receive written comments on, and marks for, their essays as well as marks for their exam.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr G Hough

Pre-requisites

None.

Co-requisites

None.

Overview

Philosophers have always been interested in the nature and origins of language and its relation to thought. During the last century and a half in particular, philosophical work in this area (along with related work in disciplines like linguistics, computer science and psychology) has been particularly fruitful. This course will introduce students to some of this work. Topics may include: the nature of reference, and whether reference is sufficient to determine the literal meaning of words and sentences; how quantifiers work (words like 'all', 'some', 'most', etc.), and what this might teach us about the nature of existence and non-existence; the relation between the important philosophical concepts analyticity, a priority, and necessity; the relationship between the meaning of our words and the content of our thoughts. Philosophers whose work may be discussed include: Gottlob Frege, Paul Grice, Saul Kripke, Alexius Meinong, Bertrand Russell, Peter Strawson, etc.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture per week, plus 1 one-hour tutorial per fortnight. (This is the same as Level 2 teaching arrangements in Philosophy for the past 4 years.)

Assessment

One 2,500 word essay (50%) plus 1 two-hour written examination (50%).

Resit: One 2,500 word essay (50%) plus one two-hour written examination (50%). Original essay mark carried forward if CAS 6 or above. New essay to be submitted if original essay CAS 5 or below.

Feedback

Students will receive written comments on, and marks for, their essays and exams.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr F Berto

Pre-requisites

None.

Co-requisites

None.

Overview

It's pretty difficult to explain in general terms what Metaphysics is or what metaphysicians do. Here's why. Firstly, Metaphysics is a very wide ranging subject, covering topics as diverse as the existence of God, the nature of space and time, and the relationship between mind and body. Secondly, what metaphysicians do can seem a little strange. They spend much of their time attempting to answer questions like 'are there numbers'?, 'do we have free will'?, or 'is the future real'? You might legitimately think that these questions don't really make much sense. What do questions like 'are there numbers'? or 'is the future real'? even mean? You might also wonder why philosophers think they can answer questions that seem more suited to mathematicians or scientists.Given the diversity and the apparent oddity of metaphysics (and metaphysicians), it is best to focus on some specific examples of the debates metaphysicians engage in. In this way, we can see how the discipline works in detail, and thus (I hope) get an idea of what metaphysics is more generally, and of what metaphysicians are trying to do. In particular, we shall focus on debates including: the nature of causation, the reality (or otherwise) of time, the possibility that we do not have any free will, and the question of what it is to be a person.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture per week, plus 1 one-hour tutorial per fortnight. (This is the same as Level 2 teaching arrangements in Philosophy for the past 4 years.)

Assessment

1st attempt: One 1,500 word essay (50%) plus 1 two-hour written examination (50%).

Resit: One 1,500 word essay (50%) plus 1 two-hour written examination (50%). Original essay mark carried forward if CAS 6 or above. New essay to be submitted if original essay CAS 5 or below.

Feedback

Students will receive written comments on, and marks for, their essays and exams.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

TBC

Pre-requisites

None.

Co-requisites

None.

Overview

Philosophy has a history from which it cannot be separated. The history of philosophy is a vast storehouse of possible solutions to problems which still puzzle us. It is also an archive of sometimes very curious philosophical problems that most contemporary philosophers would not consider engaging with (but maybe they should?). By studying the history of philosophy we gain a better understanding of how our current philosophical conceptions came about. For some philosophers, studying the history of philosophy is even the only way of doing philosophy, arguing that no concept, argument, or form of reasoning can be understood outside the concrete, historical context of its formulation. No matter how one looks at it, however, it is crucial for any aspiring philosopher to gain a sense of the development of the discipline, to acquire knowledge of the main philosophical figures and schools that have shaped it over the centuries, and to develop an idea of the problematic relation philosophy as such upholds to its history. In this course, we will read texts by a number of major, representative figures from different periods in the history of philosophy. We will also read related secondary literature.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture per week, plus 1 one-hour tutorial per fortnight. (This is the same as Level 2 teaching arrangements in Philosophy for the past 4 years.)

Assessment

1st Attempt: One 2,500 word essay (50%) plus one two-hour written examination (50%).

Resit: One 2,500 word essay (50%) plus one two-hour written examination (50%). Original essay mark carried forward if CAS 6 or above. New essay to be submitted if original essay CAS 5 or below.

Feedback

Students will receive written comments on, and marks for, their essays and exams.

Credit Points

Course Coordinator

Dr F Berto

Pre-requisites

Available to students in years three and four.

Co-requisites

None.

Notes

This course will be available in 2011/12.

Overview

It has been claimed that the problem of ontology can be phrased in a three-word question: “What is there”? Despite this easy formulation of the question, the answer has proved to be difficult through the history of philosophy. This course explores some main questions of both classic and contemporary ontology, connected to the notions of being and existence. Some such questions are: Is “being” univocal? Is there a distinction between being and existence, and between “there is” and “exists”? What does the Kantian motto “Existence is not a predicate” mean? Is existence a property? Is the notion of existence captured by the existential quantifier of elementary logic?

The course includes a broad historical overview, starting from the pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides, going through Plato’s theory of being, Aristotle’s criticisms of it, and the ontology of major Medieval thinkers like Aquinas and Avicenna. Next, the modern positions of Hume, Leibniz, and Kant on the subject are investigated. Finally, the inquiry turns to contemporary philosophy, analytic ontology, and the philosophy of quantification of such authors as Frege, Russell, Quine, Peter van Inwagen, Nathan Salmon, and Graham Priest.

Structure

One 90 minute lecture, plus one 90 minute tutorial (Thus, each student will have 3 contact hours per week.)

Tutorials/seminars begin in week 2.

Assessment

1st Attempt: One 2,500 word essay (50%); plus 1 two-hour exam (50%).

Resit: Candidates achieving a CAS mark of 6-8 may be awarded compensatory level 1 credit. Candidates achieving a CAS mark of less than 6 will be required to submit themselves for re-assessment and should contact the Course Co-ordinator for further details.

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr L Moretti

Pre-requisites

None

Notes

Students are not permitted to register for this course after the end of week 2 of teaching.

Overview

The course aims at uncovering what is constitutive of scientific rationality. Some of the most discussed conceptions of scientific methodology, including Bacionian inductivism, hypothetico-deductivism, falsificationism, Feyerabend's anarchism and Bayesianism, will be analysed. Some of these views will be tested on cases from past and contemporary science, including the Copernican revolution, the continental drift hypothesis and the AWARE study of near-death experiences. Specific and "technical" topics, including the old and new problem of induction, the Duhem-Quine thesis and paradoxes of confirmation, will also be surveyed.

Structure

One 90 minute lecture, plus one 90 minute tutorial. (Thus, each student will have 3 contact hours per week.)

Tutorials/seminars begin in week 2.

Assessment

1st Attempt: Two 2,500 word essays (100%).

Resit: Candidates achieving a CAS mark of 6-8 may be awarded compensatory level 1 credit. Candidates achieving a CAS mark of less than 6 will be required to submit themselves for re-assessment and should contact the Course Co-ordinator for further details.

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr G Hough

Pre-requisites

None

Co-requisites

None

Overview

Sometimes speakers mean more by their utterances than what those utterances literally say. Especially striking examples of this occur when a speaker is being ironic or using a metaphor. However, this phenomenon is not restricted to these special cases. There are many more mundane types of language use for which the literal meaning of the sentence used does not fully determine what the speaker means by her utterance. For example, cases of lexical ambiguity (eg. ‘Farmer Jones found his pen empty’), structural ambiguity (‘The chicken was ready to eat’), or indexicality (eg. ‘She asked for that book’).

The study of how we mean more than we literally say falls under the remit of Pragmatics. Philosophers have contributed a substantial amount to linguistic work on these issues, via work in the philosophy of language. Furthermore, philosophers have drawn on the intuitive distinction between sentence meaning and speaker meaning in attempting to solve puzzles in philosophical work on language and beyond. In this course, we will begin by examining philosophical work on various pragmatic processes: conversational implicature, presupposition, deixis. Then we will examine a variety of philosophical applications of these mechanisms, possibly including work in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and moral philosophy.

Structure

One 90 minute lecture per week. One 90 minute tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st attempt: One 2,500 word essay (50%) plus 1 two-hour exam (50%).

Resit: 1 essay of 2,500-3,000 words in length (50%); 1 two-hour written examination (50%). 1st attempt essay mark carried forward if CAS 6 or above. New essay submission required if 1st attempt essay result CAS 5 or below.

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr R Re Manning

Pre-requisites

Available to students at level 3 and above.

Notes

In academic year 2011/12 this will run in the first half-session as PH 302A.

Overview

This course studies the major problems of religious metaphysics as they have been handed down to contemporary philosophy of religion from the Enlightenment era. Taking Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason as its starting point, it first provides a close, critical examination of Kant’s own reworking of the notions of ‘God’ and ‘soul’, and of his rejection of the classical arguments for God’s existence. It then provides a systematic account of the major responses to, or evasions of, Kant’s challenge in the 20th and 21st centuries amongst those philosophers of religion who have sought either to repristinate theological metaphysics, or to give philosophical credence to God‐talk by means of other, ‘post‐metaphysical’, strategies of defence.

Structure

1 x 90 minute lecture, plus 1 x 90 minute tutorial for Level 3 students, plus 1 x 90 minute student-led seminar for Level 4 students per week. (Thus, each student will have 3 contact hours per week.) Tutorials/seminars begin in week 2.

Assessment

1st attempt: 1 x 2500 word essay (50%) plus 1 x 2 hour exam (50%).

Resit: Candidates achieving a CAS mark of 6-8 may be awarded compensatory level 1 credit. Candidates achieving a CAS mark of less than 6 will be required to submit themselves for re-assessment and should contact the Course Co-ordinator for further details.

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

To be confirmed

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Notes

Students are not permitted to register for this course after the end of week 2 of teaching.

Overview

Each student will choose a specific topic of interest to them. (These choices will be confirmed by / negoiated with the department). With supervision and direction from elected supervisors, the student will produce an extended essay of 5,000 words.

Structure

Supervision sessions to be arranged with individual members of staff (depending on student's choice of topic). These arrangements will be flexible - ie some students will need more supervision than others. No student should require more than 6 hours of supervision over the 12 week period.

Assessment

1st Attempt: One 5,000 word essay (100%).

Resit: One 5,000 word essay (100%).

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr F Berto

Pre-requisites

Successful completion of PH 1010 Logic 1.

Notes

Students are not permitted to register for this course after the end of week 2 of teaching. This course will not run in 2010/11.

Overview

Mastery of contemporary modal logic is a requisite not only for logicians, but also for philosophers of language and metaphysicians. Despite its well-known applications, possible worlds semantics raises many philosophical questions, from the metaphysical status of worlds to the meaningfulness of quantification over non-actual individuals. This course introduces both to the logical techniques and to the philosophical issues. Its most specific feature consists in providing an introduction to the new, and quickly developing, subject of impossible worlds: worlds where logical laws and other necessary truths may fail. These anarchic worlds turn out to be useful to model many phenomena of great interest for philosophers and logicians.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture per week and 1 one-hour per fortnight.

Assessment

1st Attempt: One 2,500-3,000 word essay (50%) plus 1 two-hour written examination (50%).

Resit: Candidates achieving a CAS mark of 6-8 may be awarded compensatory level 1 credit. Candidates achieving a CAS mark of less than 6 will be required to submit themselves for re-assessment and should contact the Course Co-ordinator for further details.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr F Berto

Pre-requisites

None

Notes

Students are not permitted to register for this course after the end of week 2 of teaching. This course will not run in 2010/11.

Overview

This course explores some main questions of both classic and contemporary ontology, connected to the notions of being and existence. Some such questions are: is "being" univocal? Is there a distinction between being and existence, and between "there is" and "exists"? What does the Kantian motto "Existence is not a predicate" mean? Is existence a property? Is the notion of existence captured by the existential quantifier of elementary logic? Some of the greatest metaphysicians of all times, from Parmenides to Aristotle, from Leibniz to Kant and Meinong, have struggled on these issues; which have recently been revived within analytic ontology, in the philosophy of quantification of such authors as Quine, Peter van Inwagen, Nathan Salmon, and Graham Priest.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture per week and 1 one-hour tutorial per fortnight.

Assessment

1st Attempt: One 2,500-3,000 word essay (50%) plus 1 two-hour written examination (50%).

Resit: Candidates achieving a CAS mark of 6-8 may be awarded compensatory level 1 credit. Candidates achieving a CAS mark of less than 6 will be required to submit themselves for re-assessment and should contact the Course Co-ordinator for further details.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr P D Bubbio

Pre-requisites

None

Notes

Students are not permitted to register for this course after the end of week 2 of teaching. This course will not run in 2010/11.

Overview

The aim of this module is to examine Kant's critical philosophy. Kant's 'Copernican turn' is one of the most important 'revolution' in Western philosophy. The module covers Kant's epistemology, ethics and aesthetics; it concentrates primarily on the Critique of Pure Reason and on the Critique of Practical Reason, but also covers selected material from the Critique of Judgment and from Religion within the Boundaries of Reason Alone. The approach will be text based. Particular attention will be given to the notion of 'transcendental idealism', and to the way in which it has shaped the philosophical discussion of the nineteenth and twentieth century.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture per week and 1 one-hour tutorial per fortnight.

Assessment

1st Attempt: One short 2000 word essay (40%) plus one long 3000 word essay (60%).

Resit: Candidates achieving a CAS mark of 6-8 may be awarded compensatory level 1 credit. Candidates achieving a CAS mark of less than 6 will be required to submit themselves for re-assessment and should contact the Course Co-ordinator for further details.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Professor C Wilson

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Notes

Students are not permitted to register for this course after the end of week 2 of teaching. This course will not run in 2010/2011.

Overview

The course discusses central problems in Political Philosophy, such as sovereignty, rights, the authority of government etc; and in social philosophy, such as social justice, the nature of society, the limits of liberty etc. The detailed content of the course varies from year to year.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture per week and 1 one-hour tutorial per fortnight.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 5 300-400-word short essays (total: 1500-2000 words) due every other week and a final review paper of 1200-1500 words

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (50%) and 1 2,500-3,000 word essay (50%). Original essay mark carried forward if CAS 6 or above. New essay to be submitted if original essay CAS 5 or below.

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr B Plant

Pre-requisites

None

Co-requisites

None

Overview

The content of this course will be determined each year by a lecturer whose course, based on his or her current area of research activity.

Structure

One 90 minute lecture, plus one 90 minute tutorial for Level 3 students, plus one 90 minute student-led seminar for Level 4 students per week. (Thus, each student will have 3 contact hours per week.)

Tutorials/seminars begin in week 2.

Assessment

1st Attempt: One 2,500 word essay (50%) plus 1 two-hour examination (50%).

Resit: Examination (100%).

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr G Hough

Pre-requisites

Available only to Senior Honours students (or, with permission of the Head of School, students of equivalent status, such as non-graduating students from abroad).

Co-requisites

None.

Notes

Students are not permitted to register for this course after the end of week 2 of teaching. This course will not run in 2010/11.

Overview

This course will focus on three figures: Frege (with some discussion of neo-Kantianism and of Saussure's conception of language); Russell's theory of descriptions (with some discussion of Husserl's very different approach to meaning); and Wittgenstein's Tractatus.

Structure

One 90 minute lecture per week. One 90 minute tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: One 2,500 word essay (50%); plus 1 two-hour examination (50%).

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Variable

Pre-requisites

Available only to Senior Honours students (or, with permission of the Head of School, students of equivalent status, such as non-graduating students from abroad).

Notes

Students are not permitted to register for this course after the end of week 2 of teaching. This course will not run in 2010/11.

Overview

The content of this course will be determined each year by a lecturer whose course, based on his or her current area of research activity, is offered in the preceding spring, when students apply for entry into Honours, as an option to be run in the first half-session, and is of interest to a sufficient number of students to justify running it.

Structure

3 one-hour lectures and 9 ninety-minute seminars over twelve weeks.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (50%) and 1 essay (50%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Variable

Pre-requisites

Available only to Senior Honours students (or, with permission of the Head of School, students of equivalent status, such as non-graduating students from abroad).

Notes

Students are not permitted to register for this course after the end of week 2 of teaching. This course will normally run in the second half-session as PH 4506. This course will not run in 2010/11.

Overview

The content of this course will be determined each year by a lecturer whose course, based on his or her current area of research activity, is offered in the preceding spring, when students apply for entry into Honours, as an option to be run in the second half-session, and is of interest to a sufficient number of students to justify running it.

Structure

3 one-hour lectures and 9 ninety-minute seminars over twelve weeks.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour examination (50%) and 1 essay (50%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

To be confirmed

Pre-requisites

Available only to Senior Honours students (or, with permission of the Head of School, students of equivalent status, such as non-graduating students from abroad).

Notes

This course is compulsory for Senior Honours students in Philosophy. Students are not permitted to register for this course after the end of week 2 of teaching.

Overview

A dissertation on a topic in Philosophy.

Assessment

1st Attempt: Dissertation 10,000 word (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr B Plant

Pre-requisites

Available only to Senior Honours students (or, with permission of the Head of School, students of equivalent status, such as non-graduating students from abroad).

Notes

Students are not permitted to register for this course after the end of week 2 of teaching.

Overview

This course will explore the most difficult and important philosophical question: 'What is philosophy?' Given that philosophy is a deeply self-reflective discipline, its own nature and limits are of fundamental importance. Indeed, it can be argued that metaphilosophy is not simply one branch or sub-discipline of philosophy, but rather, all philosophy is (explicitly or otherwise) metaphilosophy. The sorts of questions examined on this course include: 'Is philosophy more akin to science or literature?' 'Is there progress in philosophy?' 'How (if at all) can we demarcate between "philosophy" and "non-philosophy"?' The course will be thematically structured.

Structure

One 3,500 word essay (50%) plus 1 two-hour examination (40%) plus seminar presentation (10%).

Assessment

1st Attempt: One 2,500-3,000 word essay (50%) plus 1 two-hour written examination (50%).

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr L Moretti

Pre-requisites

None.

Co-requisites

None.

Notes

Students are not permitted to register for this course after the end of week 2 of teaching.

Overview

The course aims at uncovering what is constitutive of scientific rationality. Some of the most discussed conceptions of scientific methodology, including Bacionian inductivism, hypothetico-deductivism, falsificationism, Feyerabend's anarchism and Bayesianism, will be analysed. Some of these views will be tested on cases from past and contemporary science, including the Copernican revolution, the continental drift hypothesis and the AWARE study of near-death experiences. Specific and "technical" topics, including the old and new problem of induction, the Duhem-Quine thesis and paradoxes of confirmation, will also be surveyed.

Structure

One 90 minute lecture plus one 90 minute student-led seminar.
(Thus, each student will have 3 contact hours per week.)

Tutorials/seminars begin in week 2.

Assessment

1st Attempt: Two 3,500 word essays (90%) plus seminar presentation (10%).

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr G Hough

Pre-requisites

None

Co-requisites

None

Overview

Sometimes speakers mean more by their utterances than what those utterances literally say. Especially striking examples of this occur when a speaker is being ironic or using a metaphor. However, this phenomenon is not restricted to these special cases. There are many more mundane types of language use for which the literal meaning of the sentence used does not fully determine what the speaker means by her utterance. For example, cases of lexical ambiguity (eg. ‘Farmer Jones found his pen empty’), structural ambiguity (‘The chicken was ready to eat’), or indexicality (eg. ‘She asked for that book’).

The study of how we mean more than we literally say falls under the remit of Pragmatics. Philosophers have contributed a substantial amount to linguistic work on these issues, via work in the philosophy of language. Furthermore, philosophers have drawn on the intuitive distinction between sentence meaning and speaker meaning in attempting to solve puzzles in philosophical work on language and beyond. In this course, we will begin by examining philosophical work on various pragmatic processes: conversational implicature, presupposition, deixis. Then we will examine a variety of philosophical applications of these mechanisms, possibly including work in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and moral philosophy.

Structure

One 90 minute lecture per week. One 90 minute student-led seminar per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: Two 3,500 word essays (90%) plus seminar presentation (10%).

Resit: 1 essay of 2,500-3,000 words in length (50%); 1 two-hour written examination (50%). 1st attempt essay mark carried forward if CAS 6 or above. New essay submission required if 1st attempt essay result CAS 5 or below.

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr R Re Manning

Pre-requisites

Notes

In academic year 2011/12 this course will run in the first half-session as PH 402A.

Overview

This course studies the major problems of religious metaphysics as they have been handed down to contemporary philosophy of religion from the Enlightenment era. Taking Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason as its starting point, it first provides a close, critical examination of Kant’s own reworking of the notions of ‘God’ and ‘soul’, and of his rejection of the classical arguments for God’s existence. It then provides a systematic account of the major responses to, or evasions of, Kant’s challenge in the 20th and 21st centuries amongst those philosophers of religion who have sought either to repristinate theological metaphysics, or to give philosophical credence to God‐talk by means of other, ‘post‐metaphysical’, strategies of defence.

Structure

1 x 90 minute lecture, plus 1 x 90 minute tutorial for Level 3 students, plus 1 x 90 minute student-led seminar for Level 4 students per week. (Thus, each student will have 3 contact hours per week.) Tutorials/seminars begin in week 2.

Assessment

1st attempt: 1 x 3500 word essay (50%) plus 1 x 2 hour exam (40%) plus seminar presentation (10%).

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

TBC

Pre-requisites

None

Co-requisites

None

Overview

The content of this course will be determined each year by a lecturer whose course, based on his or her current area of research activity.

Structure

One 90 minute lecture, plus one 90 minute tutorial for Level 3 students, plus one 90 minute student-led seminar for Level 4 students per week. (Thus, each student will have 3 contact hours per week.)

Tutorials/seminars begin in week 2.

Assessment

1st Attempt: One 3,500 word essay (50%) plus 1 two-hour examination (40%) plus seminar presentation (10%).

Resit: No resit. Candidates achieving a CAS mark of 6–8 may be awarded compensatory Level 1 credits.

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr G Hough

Pre-requisites

Available only to Senior Honours students (or, with permission of the Head of School, students of equivalent status, such as non-graduating students from abroad).

Co-requisites

None.

Notes

Students are not permitted to register for this course after the end of week 2 of teaching. This course will not run in 2010/11.

Overview

This course will focus on three figures: Frege (with some discussion of neo-Kantianism and of Saussure's conception of language); Russell's theory of descriptions (with some discussion of Husserl's very different approach to meaning); and Wittgenstein's Tractatus.

Structure

One 90 minute student-led seminar per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: Two 3,500 word essays (90%) plus seminar presentation (10%).

Formative Assessment

Feedback