Catalogue of Second Year Modules for 2015 - 16
Contents
Section 1 – Introduction
Modules
3
Pathways
3
Second Year Options
3
Electives
3
Languages for All
4
Changing modules
4
Maximum numbers on modules
4
Section 2 – Degree Programmes Structures
Philosophy Single Subject
5
Computer Science and Philosophy
5
English and Philosophy
6
Philosophy and Linguistics
6
Modern Languages and Philosophy
6
History and Philosophy
6
Mathematics and Philosophy
7
Philosophy and Sociology
7
Physics with Philosophy
7
Section 3 – Modules List
8-9
Section 4 – Module Descriptions
Pathway module outlines
10-16
Politics modules outlines (Philosophy Single Subject students only)
17-18
Second Year Option Module Outlines
19-41
2
Section 1 – Introduction
This Catalogue sets out the Pathways and Optional Modules which will be available to present first year
students in their second year, 2015-16. All current first year students, whatever their combination, should
now choose the Philosophy modules for their second year. These choices can be reviewed later, with
certain restrictions (see Changing Modules on the next page). Students should register their choices on
the module registration form which is available in hard copy from the Philosophy Department and also on
the webpages at: http://www.york.ac.uk/philosophy/current/undergraduate/modules/#tab-2
Modules
You are required to check your choices with your Philosophy supervisor or joint programme adviser before
handing in your registration form. This form should be handed into the Philosophy Office by 4.00 p.m. on
Friday 13th February 2015. The Department will be running a module briefing session in January to help
guide you in choosing your modules. The session will show on your timetable and you are strongly advised
to attend. You are also encouraged to seek guidance from your supervisor or joint programme advisor.
All philosophy pathways and modules taken in the second and third year are University assessed and
count towards your final degree classification.
Pathways (30 credits)
The Pathways introduce key issues in four central areas of philosophy:
 History of Philosophy
 Knowledge and Reality
 Language and Mind
 Moral Philosophy
They are designed to aid development of core philosophical skills.
Where a third year module recommends a particular second year Pathway, it will presuppose some, but
not all, of the material from that second year module. Students who have not taken the second year
Pathway module may sometimes be expected to do a certain amount of extra reading.
Second Year Options (10 credits)
Second year options give you an opportunity to broaden your knowledge of the discipline by taking
shorter, more focused modules dealing with a particular area, topic or skill.
Lecture-based Modules
These modules are designed to introduce a specialist area of Philosophy and are generally taught by
weekly lectures, with four additional 1.5 hour seminars during the term.
Reading Group Modules
These modules provide an opportunity for close study of a philosophical text and are generally taught by
a weekly 90-minute reading group to discuss set reading.
Elective modules – (Please note that only students on the Philosophy Single Subject programme may
substitute a Philosophy module for an elective in their second year)
Within the University Elective Module scheme the opportunity exists to substitute modules in other
departments for some Philosophy modules. If you wish to take any elective module you should first
consult the University's Compendium of Elective Modules:
http://www.york.ac.uk/admin/sro/electives.htm), see your supervisor or joint programme adviser, and
then enquire in the relevant department whether space is available. Forms for elective registration are
available online at: http://www.york.ac.uk/philosophy/current/undergraduate/modules/#tab-4 and also
3
from Carol Dixon in the Philosophy Office to whom the form must be returned on completion by the
Department offering the elective.
Languages for All – modules taught by the Language Teaching Centre
The opportunity also exists on some degree programmes to substitute Philosophy modules with
Languages for All (LFA) modules. If you wish to take an LFA module you should first consult the LFA
webpages: www.york.ac.uk/inst/ltc/lfa, and be sure to discuss the option carefully with your supervisor
or joint programme adviser.
Please note that in the second year only students on the Philosophy Single Subject programme may
replace a Philosophy module with an LFA module to count for credit.
Please also note that if a student opts to take an LFA module that is below the level appropriate to their
stage this is allowed but the module will only be marked on a pass/fail basis. Please contact Carol Dixon in
the Philosophy Department for further details.
Practical considerations (e.g. timetable clashes, over-subscription, or pre-requisites in the other
Department), may mean you are not able to get onto a specific elective or LFA module.
The University imposes an upper limit on the number of credits you may take as Electives or LFA
modules. This is 40 credits over years two and three.
Changing Modules
Autumn and Spring Terms
You may change out of or into a module up to the end (i.e. 4pm on Friday) of the second week of teaching
on that module but no later than that.
Summer Term
Due to the restricted number of teaching weeks in the Summer Term, Second Year 10-credit modules
taken in the Summer Term cannot be changed once term has started.
Requests for changes should be sent to Carol Dixon (carol.dixon@york.ac.uk)
Although changing modules is permissible under the rules above, practical considerations, (e.g. timetable
clashes and over-subscription), may mean you are not able to change onto a specific module.
Only where there are exceptional reasons, such as illness, and with the permission of the Board of Studies
and the University’s Special Cases Committee, can you drop out of a module after the deadline.
NB No change of module will be recognised unless notification of it has been received and
acknowledged by Carol Dixon in the Department office.
Maximum numbers on modules
Pathways have no maximum number of students enrolled on them.
All other modules are subject to a maximum number cap:
Lecture-based modules: 45
Reading group modules: 30
4
Section 2 – Degree Programme Structure
Your choice of modules for the second and third years (Stages 2 and 3) is governed by the programme
structure for your degree programme (as detailed below) but there are two general rules which apply to
all programmes:
1. All students may take a maximum of 60 credits and a minimum of 20 credits in any term (a
module lasting more than one term is considered to have its credits spread evenly across its
duration).
2. All students should take 120 total credits in the second year, including credits taken in other
departments if they are combined students, and any elective modules.
These rules are meant to protect you from over-burdening yourself. The credit value of a module reflects
the time spent in teaching and learning.
Philosophy Single Subject
Stage 2 (120 credits)
Students may choose one of the following options:



four Philosophy Pathways, or
three Pathways and 30 credits of Philosophy Option/elective/LFA modules*, or
three Pathways and one of the two 30-credit Politics modules ‘Contemporary Political Philosophy’
or ‘History of Political Thought’.
*The University imposes an upper limit on the number of credits you may take as Electives or LFA
modules. This is 40 credits in total over Stages 2 and 3.
Combined Degrees
All joint students should also consult the handbooks from their other departments. Degree programme
structures for Politics/Economics/Philosophy, and Social and Political Sciences with Philosophy are
available on those departments’ websites.
Computer Science and Philosophy
Stage 2 (60 credits in Philosophy)
Students may choose one of the following options:


two Philosophy Pathways* or,
one Pathway* and 30 credits of Philosophy Option modules**
*Language and Mind Pathway recommended
** Students should consult with their supervisor or joint programme adviser about Option
module choices, and pay particular attention to the spread of workload over the year. Where
Combined Students request to take Philosophy options modules, every effort will be made to
timetable their choices to fit the remainder of their degree programme, but it will not always be
possible to timetable students’ first choices. With this in mind, it is important to think carefully
about alternatives to your top three option module choices.
5
English and Philosophy EQ
Stage 2 (60 credits in Philosophy)
Students may choose one of the following options:


two Philosophy Pathways, or
one Pathway and 30 credits of Philosophy Option modules*
* Students should consult with their supervisor or joint programme adviser about Option module
choices, and pay particular attention to the spread of workload over the year. Where Combined
Students request to take Philosophy options modules, every effort will be made to timetable their
choices to fit the remainder of their degree programme, but it will not always be possible to
timetable students’ first choices. With this in mind, it is important to think carefully about
alternatives to your top three option module choices.
Philosophy and Linguistics EQ
Stage 2 (60 credits in Philosophy)
Students may choose one of the following options:


two Philosophy Pathways*, or
one Pathway* and 30 credits of Philosophy Option modules**
*Language and Mind Pathway recommended
** Students should consult with their supervisor or joint programme adviser about Option
module choices, and pay particular attention to the spread of workload over the year. Where
Combined Students request to take Philosophy options modules, every effort will be made to
timetable their choices to fit the remainder of their degree programme, but it will not always be
possible to timetable students’ first choices. With this in mind, it is important to think carefully
about alternatives to your top three option module choices.
Modern Languages and Philosophy EQ
Stage 2 (60 credits in Philosophy)
Students may choose one of the following options:


two Philosophy Pathways*, or
one Pathway* and 30 credits of Philosophy Option modules**
*Language and Mind Pathway recommended
** Students should consult with their supervisor or joint programme adviser about Option
module choices, and pay particular attention to the spread of workload over the year. Where
Combined Students request to take Philosophy options modules, every effort will be made to
timetable their choices to fit the remainder of their degree programme, but it will not always be
possible to timetable students’ first choices. With this in mind, it is important to think carefully
about alternatives to your top three option module choices.
History and Philosophy EQ
Stage 2 (60 credits in Philosophy)
Students may choose one of the following options:


two Philosophy Pathways* or,
one Pathway* and 30 credits of Philosophy Option modules**
*History of Philosophy Pathway recommended
6
** Students should consult with their supervisor or joint programme adviser about Option
module choices, and pay particular attention to the spread of workload over the year. Where
Combined Students request to take Philosophy options modules, every effort will be made to
timetable their choices to fit the remainder of their degree programme, but it will not always be
possible to timetable students’ first choices. With this in mind, it is important to think carefully
about alternatives to your top three option module choices.
Mathematics and Philosophy EQ
Stage 2 (60 credits in Philosophy)
Students may choose one of the following options:


two Philosophy Pathways* or,
one Pathway* and 30 credits of Philosophy Option modules**
* Knowledge and Reality Pathway recommended
** Students should consult with their supervisor or joint programme adviser about Option
module choices, and pay particular attention to the spread of workload over the year. Where
Combined Students request to take Philosophy options modules, every effort will be made to
timetable their choices to fit the remainder of their degree programme, but it will not always be
possible to timetable students’ first choices. With this in mind, it is important to think carefully
about alternatives to your top three option module choices.
Philosophy and Sociology EQ
Stage 2 (60 credits in Philosophy)
Students may choose one of the following options:


two Philosophy Pathways, or
one Pathway and 30 credits of Philosophy Option modules*
*Students should consult with their supervisor or joint programme adviser about Option module
choices, and pay particular attention to the spread of workload over the year. Where Combined
Students request to take Philosophy options modules, every effort will be made to timetable their
choices to fit the remainder of their degree programme, but it will not always be possible to
timetable students’ first choices. With this in mind, it is important to think carefully about
alternatives to your top three option module choices.
Physics with Philosophy 3 Year BSc
Stage 2 (40 credits in Philosophy)
 Students choose one Philosophy Pathway* and one Option module.
* Knowledge and Reality recommended
Physics with Philosophy 4 year MPhys
Stage 2 (40 credits in Philosophy)
 Students choose one Philosophy Pathway* and one Option module.
*Knowledge and Reality recommended
7
Section 3 – Modules List
Pathway Modules
Autumn 2015, Spring 2016 and Summer 2016 (Terms 4-6)
Module Code
Module Name
Year
Assessment
Credits
Page No
PHI00004I
History of Philosophy Pathway
2
Exams and Essays
30
10
PHI00001I
2
Exams and Essays
30
11
PHI00003I
Knowledge and Reality
Pathway
Language and Mind Pathway
2
Exams and Essays
30
13
PHI00002I
Moral Philosophy Pathway
2
Exams and Essays
30
15
Politics Modules available to Philosophy Single Subject Students only
Autumn 2015, Spring 2016 and Summer 2016 (Terms 4-6)
Module Code
Module Name
Year
Assessment
Credits
Page No
POL00004I
Contemporary Political
Philosophy
History of Political Thought
2
Essay and Exam
30
17
2
Essay and Exam
30
18
POL00005I
Second Year Option Modules
Autumn 2015 (Term 4)
Module Code
Module Name
Year
Assessment
Credits
Page No
PHI00045I
Chinese Philosophy
2
Essay
10
20
PHI00055I
Darwin and Human Nature
2
Exam
10
21
PHI00017I
Husserl’s Phenomenology
2
Essay
10
26
PHI00021I
Paradoxes
2
Exam
10
29
PHI00052I
Searle’s Social Ontology
2
Essay
10
36
PHI00038I
Spinoza’s Ethics
2
Essay
10
40
PHI00041I
Thomas Nagel’s The View from
Nowhere
2
Essay
10
41
8
Spring 2016 (Term 5)
Module Code
Module Name
Year
Assessment
Credits
Page
PHI00013I
Causation and Laws
2
Exam
10
19
PHI00056I
Effective Altruism
2
Essay
10
22
PHI00048I
Epistemic Normativity
2
Essay
10
23
PHI00015I
Formal Logic
2
Exam
10
24
PHI00007I
God and Morality
2
Essay
10
25
PHI00008I
Philosophy of Time
2
Exam
10
32
PHI00058I
Reading Kierkegaard
2
Essay
10
33
PHI00059I
Scientific Image, The
2
Essay
10
35
Summer 2016 (Term 6)
Module Code
Module Name
Year
Assessment
Credits
Page
PHI00049I
John McDowell on Knowledge
& Reality
2
Essay
10
27
PHI00057I
Nietzsche on Morality
2
Essay
10
28
PHI00061I
2
Essay
10
30
PHI00028I
Philosophy in the Muslim
World
Seeing Dark Things
2
Essay
10
37
PHI00060I
Social & Political Epistemology
2
Essay
10
38
9
Section 4 – Module Descriptions
Pathway Module Outlines
PHI00004I
Module Title:
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY PATHWAY
Assessment Value:
30 credits
Duration of Module:
Autumn, Spring and Summer Terms
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Taught in four blocks, by fortnightly lectures and seminars
Aim:
To chart some central themes in the work of four great philosophers: Aristotle,
Hume, Kant, and Hegel. More particularly:
 Aristotle on the nature of substance and change
 Hume on scepticism and naturalism
 Kant on the distinction between appearances and things in themselves,
and its ramifications for scientific knowledge and metaphysics
 Hegel’s absolute idealism and his Phenomenology of Spirit
Objectives:


Content:
To acquire a critical understanding of some key issues in the history of
philosophy
To develop core philosophical skills, including the careful and critical
reading of major historical texts in the discipline

Aristotle on natural and living substances; and on cause and explanation;
Aquinas on being and essence (block 1)
 Hume on the origin and association of ideas; on scepticism and
naturalism; and on mitigated scepticism (block 2)
 Kant on his Copernican revolution in metaphysics; on his defence of
natural science and attack on Hume’s causal scepticism; and on his
criticism of the claims of metaphysics to prove the existence of God, the
immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the will (block 3)
 Hegel on absolute idealism and his criticism of Kant’s theory of
knowledge; on his conception of philosophical critique, together with an
overview of his Phenomenology of Spirit (block 4)
Summative
Assessment:
Block 1: 1500 word essay, submitted Week 7 Autumn term
Block 2: Exam, Week 1 Spring term
Block 3: 1500 word essay, submitted Week 7 Spring term
Block 4: Exam, to be scheduled within Weeks 5-7 Summer term
Prerequisites:
There are no prerequisites for this module
Suggested Preliminary
Reading:
J. Lear. Aristotle: The Desire to Understand. Cambridge University Press 1988.
See esp. Ch. 2; Ch. 4, sec. 1; Ch. 6, secs. 3-6.
D. Wiggins ‘Substance’, section 4 of Metaphysics in A.C. Grayling (ed.)
Philosophy: A Guide Through The Subject
A. J. Ayer Hume: A Very Short Introduction
G. J. Warnock ‘Kant’ in The Great Philosophers by B. Magee (ed.)
S. Houlgate ‘G. W. F. Hegel’ in Blackwell Guide to the Modern Philosophers: from
Descartes to Nietzsche by S. Emmanuel (ed.)
10
PHI00001I
Module Title:
KNOWLEDGE & REALITY PATHWAY
Assessment Value:
30 credits
Duration of Module:
Autumn, Spring and Summer Terms
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Taught in four blocks, by fortnightly lectures and seminars
Aim:
To introduce some key issues in epistemology and metaphysics, including:
 the nature of knowledge, and whether knowledge is possible (Block 1),
 the nature of corporeal objects, (Block 2),
 the nature of scientific knowledge (Block 3), and
 the nature of God and of our knowledge of God (Block 4).
Objectives:
By the end of the module students should have:
 a critical understanding of some key issues in epistemology and metaphysics
 developed core philosophical skills
Content
If philosophy begins in wonder, then that wonder often begins with wonder
about ourselves, the world about us, and our knowledge of it. This Pathway
explores that wonder, considering some fundamental questions about the
nature of the world and our knowledge of it.
 What is knowledge and can we know anything at all? The first block
considers these questions, canvassing a variety of responses to scepticism.
 What kind of thing am I? What about the things I find around me? The
second block considers these questions, questions which concern the nature
of corporeal objects, such as tables and persons, how they survive change
and what changes they can survive.
 How can science give us knowledge about the world? Do atoms and quarks
really exist if we can’t observe them? The third block considers these
questions, questions about the nature of science and of scientific
knowledge.
 From our experience of the world, do we have sufficient evidence for God's
(non) existence? The fourth block considers this question, namely, given the
world we see around us, ordered by fine-tuned laws of nature and marred
by instances of moral and natural evil, what can we know about the
existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good God and on what does
that knowledge depend?
Summative Assessment:
Block 1: 1500 word essay, submitted Week 7 Autumn term
Block 2: Exam, Week 1 Spring term
Block 3: 1500 word essay, submitted Week 7 Spring term
Block 4: Exam, to be scheduled within Weeks 5-7 Summer term
Prerequisites:
Reason and Argument is normally a prerequisite for this Pathway. Students who
wish to take this Pathway who have not completed Reason and Argument
should consult with the Module Convenor for the Pathway. Students who have
not completed Reason and Argument will be required to take the Express Logic
component of the online Beginning Philosophy module unless they can
demonstrate they already have the required background knowledge (e.g. by
showing that they have successfully completed a module or course of study
comparable to Reason and Argument).
11
Suggested Preliminary
Reading:
J. Dancy, An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology. Oxford: Blackwell, 1985.
M. Loux, Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction. London: Routledge, 2002.
J. Ladyman, Understanding Philosophy of Science. London: Routledge, 2001.
C. Meister, Introducing Philosophy of Religion. London: Routledge, 2009.
12
PHI00003I
Module Title:
LANGUAGE & MIND PATHWAY
Assessment Value:
30 credits
Duration of Module:
Autumn, Spring, and Summer Terms
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Taught in four blocks, by fortnightly lectures and seminars
Aim:



Objectives:
By the end of the module students should:


Content
To introduce some key issues in the philosophy of language and
the philosophy of mind, including:
Some main topics in philosophy of language (Blocks 1 and 2)
Some main topics in the philosophy of mind (Blocks 3 and 4)
have developed a critical understanding of some key issues in the
philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind
have developed core philosophical knowledge and skills
Philosophers are interested in the relations between language, the world,
and our minds. (How can we represent the world with words? What are
the connections between language and thought?)
The first part of this pathway looks at attempts to understand linguistic
meaning in terms of reference (roughly, the idea that meaning is rooted in
expressions ‘standing for’ things in the world), and some difficulties which
arise for this initially appealing idea, with regard to apparent differences of
meaning between expressions which stand for the same thing, and with
regard to cases in which apparently meaningful expressions fail to have
things corresponding to them.
The second part of this pathway looks at the nature of mind, and different
accounts we might give of: the ‘what it is like’ of conscious experience; the
relations between mental states—such as being in pain—and physical
states of our brains and nervous systems; the way in which mental states
seem to represent things outside them; what makes a bodily movement a
rational action; and the nature of emotion.
Summative Assessment:
Block 1: 1500 word essay, submitted Week 7 Autumn term
Block 2: Exam, Week 1 Spring term
Block 3: 1500 word essay, submitted Week 7 Spring term
Block 4: Exam, to be scheduled within Weeks 5-7 Summer term
Prerequisites:
Reason and Argument is normally a prerequisite for this Pathway. Students
who wish to take this Pathway who have not completed Reason and
Argument should consult with the Module Convenor for the Pathway.
Students who have not completed Reason and Argument will be required
to take the Express Logic component of the online Beginning Philosophy
module unless they can demonstrate they already have the required
background knowledge (e.g. by showing that they have successfully
completed a module or course of study comparable to Reason and
Argument.
13
Suggested Preliminary
Reading:
Lee, Barry 2011: Sections 1 to 5 of the editor’s introduction to Philosophy
of Language: The Key Thinkers. London: Continuum.
Morris, Michael 2007: Introduction and Ch. 1 of his An Introduction to the
Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dennett, Daniel C. & Haugeland, John, ‘Intentionality’, in R. L. Gregory (ed.)
The Oxford Companion to the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
[Available at: http://cogprints.org/252/1/intentio.htm]
Crane, Tim, The Mechanical Mind. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995.
Churchland, Paul, Matter and Consciousness. Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press,
1988.
14
PHI00002I
Module Title:
MORAL PHILOSOPHY PATHWAY
Assessment Value:
30 credits
Duration of Module:
Autumn, Spring and Summer Terms
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Taught in four blocks, by fortnightly lectures and seminars
Aim:
To introduce key issues in moral philosophy, including:
 Metaphysical and epistemological concerns regarding values and
morality,
 The relation between the deontic and the evaluative domain,
 Competing ethical theories like consequentialism, deontology,
virtue theory and contractarianism
 Historical background to contemporary debates
 Applications of ethical theories to contemporary moral issues
Objectives:
By the end of the module students should have:
 a critical understanding of key issues in moral philosophy
 an ability to engage with issues in moral philosophy from a
historical as well as a contemporary perspective
 an awareness of the relevance of moral philosophy in moral
debates
 developed core philosophical skills
Content
This module introduces students to three main areas in practical
philosophy: meta-ethics, ethical theory, and applied ethics. The metaethics block deals with the realism/anti-realism debate in moral
philosophy as well as with issues concerning moral motivation and moral
reasons. The normative theory blocks focus on debates between
utilitarianism, Kantianism and deontology, virtue theory and
contractarianism. The last block will apply the conceptual and theoretical
resources of philosophy to moral problems.
Summative Assessment:
Block 1: 1500 word essay, submitted Week 7 Autumn term
Block 2: Exam, Week 1 Spring term
Block 3: 1500 word essay, submitted Week 7 Spring term
Block 4: Exam, to be scheduled within Weeks 5-7 Summer term
Prerequisites:
Reason and Argument is normally a prerequisite for this Pathway.
Students who wish to take this Pathway who have not completed Reason
and Argument should consult with the Module Convenor for the Pathway.
Students who have not completed Reason and Argument will be required
to take the Express Logic component of the online Beginning Philosophy
module unless they can demonstrate they already have the required
background knowledge (e.g. by showing that they have successfully
completed a module or course of study comparable to Reason and
Argument.
15
Suggested Preliminary
Reading:
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Kant, Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals
Mill, Utilitarianism
A Miller, An Introduction to Contemporary Meta-ethics, Polity 2003
J Dreier, Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory, Blackwell, 2006.
AI Cohen, C Heath Wellman, Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics,
Wiley-Blackwell, 2004.
16
POLITICS MODULE OUTLINES (available to Philosophy Single Subject students only)
Please note that this module is run and assessed by the Politics Department
POL00004I
Module Title:
CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Credit value:
30
Convenor:
Dr Alex Bavister-Gould
Contact Hours:
32
Lectures:
14 (7 per term, Autumn and Spring) & 2 revision (Summer term)
Seminars:
16 (8 per term, Autumn and Spring)
Module Aims
 to develop in students a critical understanding of approaches to and problems in contemporary
political philosophy
 to develop students’ analytical, argumentative and communicative skills
Module Learning Outcomes
By the end of this module a student should:
 have a critical understanding of approaches to and problems in contemporary political philosophy
 have an ability to advance and analyse arguments in political philosophy
Further Module Information
We commonly declare political arrangements to be just or unjust. For example, we might think that it is unjust
that those who have worked hard and been successful in life should have to pay taxes to support the less
industrious. Alternatively, we might think it unjust that some people get a better start in life than others (have
richer parents, or better education), and we might therefore think that the state ought to compensate those
who are disadvantaged. But by what criteria do we decide that political arrangements are just or unjust? What
would a just society be like? And why?
These are the central questions of this module and our aim is to understand the reasons for thinking political
arrangements to be either just or unjust. We shall do this via a detailed examination of some of the most
important work on social justice to have been published during the past fifty years. In Autumn term, we’ll
carefully read the work of John Rawls, one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, as
well as looking at a range of important critical and secondary material. In Spring term, we’ll examine some of
the reactions and responses to Rawls’s work in the years since the publication of his A Theory of Justice, from
libertarian, communitarian, feminist and egalitarian critics. Among the other philosophers studied will be
Robert Nozick, Susan Moller Okin, Michael Sandel, Charles Taylor, and G. A. Cohen.
The module will also involve looking at a number of issues in real politics and public policy, against the
background of the philosophical issues we have studied. Among the practical issues that will be discussed are
taxation, property rights, the welfare state, the place of religion in public life, gay marriage, health policy, and
issues relating to public education and the funding of universities.
Assessment
One procedural written assignment of up to 500 words during the Autumn Term.
One essay of up to 2000 words counting for 40% of the module mark, due in the Winter assessment period
(Monday week 1, Spring Term).
One two hour closed examination counting for 60% of the module mark, taken in the Summer assessment
period (Weeks 5-7).
Key Texts
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971/ revised edition 1999)
John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001)
Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)
17
Please note that this module is run and assessed by the Politics Department
POL00005I
Module Title:
HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT
Credit value:
30
Convenor:
Dr Jon Parkin
Contact Hours:
32
Lectures:
14 (7 per term, Autumn and Spring) & 2 revision (Summer term)
Seminars:
16 (8 per term, Autumn and Spring)
Module Aims
 to develop in students a critical understanding of important texts in the history of political
thought
 to develop students’ analytical, argumentative and communicative skills
Module Learning Outcomes
By the end of this module a student should:
 have a critical understanding of some of the key texts in the history of political thought
 have an ability to advance and analyse philosophical arguments about political ideas.
Further Module Information
This module examines central texts by major political thinkers: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hume and Kant.
These thinkers are acknowledged to have provided some of the classic literature concerning politics and
its relation to life in general and moral life particularly. This module introduces and investigates their
ideas and their arguments, their methods of argument, and the historical and political contexts in which
they were developed. Among the topics addressed are political obligation (why should one obey the
law?), the criteria for legitimate government, the meaning of freedom, the nature and justification of
punishment, the role of private property, and various kinds of equality. All the thinkers studied here
discuss some of these issues, and often they comment on one another’s ideas, either directly or by
implication, sometimes negatively and sometimes positively. Sometimes an idea stated embryonically by
one thinker is taken over and refined or transformed by another, as with Rousseau and Kant. Accordingly,
the study of one thinker helps to cast light upon the ideas of the others.
Assessment
One procedural written assignment of up to 500 words during the Autumn Term.
One essay of up to 2000 words counting for 40% of the module mark, due in the Winter assessment
period (Monday week 1, Spring Term).
One two hour closed examination counting for 60% of the module mark, taken in the Summer assessment
period (Weeks 5-7).
Key Texts
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
John Locke, Two Treatises of Government
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality and Social Contract
David Hume, Treatise on Human Nature
Immanuel Kant, Political Writing
18
PHI00013I
Module Title:
CAUSATION AND LAWS
Lecture-based Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term ( Spring Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Weekly lectures (1-2 hours), plus three seminars (2 one hour, 1 two hour)
across the term. Reading week in Week 6. Feedback on formative work.
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all lectures and seminars.
Aim:
To introduce the topics of causation, laws of nature and the relationship
between these two subject matters of philosophical study.
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:
Students should be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of
the philosophical issues concerning the nature of causation and law, and
the connection between them.
Content:
After considering the relationship between causation and laws, we will
consider three theories of law – regularity, contingent nomic necessitation
and powers – and the particular theories of causation they support. Issues
which come up in the course of this discussion will include whether causal
non-symmetry is to be understood in terms of human interventions;
negative causation and process theories of causation and, to close, the
possibility of a non-reductive approach.
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
Formative Assessment:
Summative Assessment:
Suggested Preliminary
Reading:
Essay plan (1 side A4, 11 point) on practice exam question. Due Friday
Week 8
A 1-hour exam in Summer Term Assessment Period (Weeks 5-7)
J.L. Mackie (1980), The Cement of the Universe (Oxford Scholarship online)
19
PHI00045I
Module Title:
CHINESE PHILOSOPHY
Reading Group Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term (Autumn Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Weekly 90-minute reading group in Weeks 3 – 9 plus two 1-hour
lectures in Week 2 and one 1-hour lecture in Week 10
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all seminars
Aim:
To enable students to develop:
 a critical understanding of some of the central ideas in one of the
key texts of classical Chinese philosophy
 an appreciation of some of the differences between Chinese and
Western philosophy
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:
To develop students’ abilities:
 to explain clearly, concisely, and accurately a key text
 to engage critically with that text
 to develop their own views on that text
Content
Based on guided reading of one of the key texts of classical Chinese
philosophy, students will come to appreciate some of the
characteristics and central themes in Chinese philosophy, for example,
the essential ideas of Confucian ethics (as emerging from the Analects,
in particular) or the Daoist conception of nature (as expressed in the
Laozi and Zhuangzi). Selected works of secondary literature will be
recommended to help in the understanding of unfamiliar texts and
different writing styles, and attention will be paid to comparing the key
ideas with some related or corresponding ideas in Western philosophy.
Appreciation of some of the similarities and differences between
Chinese and Western philosophy will be an important outcome of
taking this module.
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
Formative Assessment:
500-word essay in Week 6 of Autumn Term
Summative Assessment:
One 2,500-word essay to be submitted on Monday Week 1 of Spring
Term
Suggested Preliminary
Reading:
One of the key texts in Chinese philosophy, such as Confucius’ Analects
or the Daoist Zhuangzi.
20
PHI00055I
Module Title:
DARWIN AND HUMAN NATURE
Lecture-based Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term (Autumn Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Weekly lectures, plus four seminars across the term. Feedback on
formative work.
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all lectures and seminars
Aim:
To outline Darwin’s theories of evolution by means of natural selection
and sexual selection, and the claimed implications of these for ideas of
human nature and human capacities – for example moral thinking, art and
language. Students will be encouraged to consider the different varieties
of Darwinism, and challenges to Darwinian explanation of these
capacities.
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:
Prohibited Module:
Formative Assessment:
Summative Assessment:
Suggested Preliminary
Reading (and Set Text):
Subject content
 Familiarity with the broad outline of the theories of natural
selection and sexual selection, in traditional and neo-Darwinian
forms.
 Understanding how these are thought to explain the development
of human capacities.
 Understanding the nature of, and challenges to, this type of
explanation.
Academic and graduate skills
 Grasping the philosophical implications of ideas in different
disciplines – in this case biology and psychology – and the
philosophical challenges to these.
 The capacity to assess new ideas and develop an independent
response.
Other learning outcomes (if applicable)
 Building confidence in forming and expressing one’s own views in
discussion and in writing.
PHI00079H Evolution and Ethics
Take home exam question in Week 6 Spring Term
A 1-hour exam in Week 1 Spring Term
Radcliffe Richards, J. (2000) Human Nature After Darwin. London: Routledge
Dennett, D. (1995) Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. London: Penguin Books
Dupre, J. (2003) Darwin’s Legacy. Oxford: OUP.
21
PHI00056I
Module Title:
EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM
Reading Group Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term (Spring Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Weekly 90-minute reading group in Weeks 2 - 10
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all sessions
Aim:
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:

To read and critically engage with a number of texts and issues relating to the
theme of making a difference.
Subject content
 Gain familiarity with central arguments surrounding the philosophy of beneficence
and the “effective altruism” movement
Academic and graduate skills

Content:
Develop students’ abilities to engage critically with ethical debates, and to develop,
express, and defend their own moral views.
Many of us want our lives to “make a difference”. But what exactly does this amount
to? Is it a realistic goal? How might it best be pursued?
Together we will read and discuss papers addressing a mix of theoretical and applied
topics relating to making a difference. Theoretical questions may include:


Why make a difference?
What does it mean, or take, to really “make a difference”? Does it require a global
focus, or could it suffice to make a difference in the lives of one’s closest friends and
family?
 When outcomes are determined by the collective choices and actions of a large
population, can any individual contributor really be said to have made any
difference at all?
Applied topics – exploring candidate “causes” that may potentially be considered of
great importance – will be chosen partly based on student interests, but may include,
for example:





Global poverty
Animal welfare
Immigration reform
Environmentalism / Climate Change
Existential risk / influencing the far future
Discussion will be guided by a handout, produced each week by a student (or small
group of students), to include a summary of the main points of the week’s reading, and
a short list of questions to be addressed.
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
Formative Assessment:
n/a
Seminar handout: 500 – 1,000 words
Assessment:
2,500 word essay to be submitted on Monday Week 1 of the Summer Term
Key Text(s):


Singer, Peter (1972). ‘Famine, affluence, and morality’ Philosophy and Public Affairs
1 (3):229-243.
www.givewell.org
22
PHI00048I
Module Title:
EPISTEMIC NORMATIVITY
Reading Group Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term (Spring Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Weekly 90-minute reading group in Weeks 2 - 10
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all sessions
Aim:




To develop an understanding of the nature and importance of
epistemology
To critically engage with a major issue discussed in epistemology
To understand the relations between ethics and epistemology
To practise and improve the skills of philosophical thinking and
debating
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:
Students should be able to
 assess and critically discuss different views of epistemic normativity,
via careful engagement with some key texts in this area
 investigate whether there are epistemic duties and how the epistemic
good relates to goodness in general
 see how views on epistemic normativity influence and shape one’s
epistemological outlook in general
 understand the relations and differences between epistemological
and ethical debates.
 develop reasoned and sustained arguments and support them against
objections.
Content:
We can regard epistemology as offering a set of norms. For example, do
not believe contradictions; adjust your beliefs in the light of new evidence;
have degree of beliefs that are representable by a probability function.
We will discuss the following questions. Are these norms hypothetical, i.e.
presupposing some end like believing truly, or categorical? Do such norms
flow from what is good? Is there a notion of epistemic goodness and how
should we understand it? What is the relation between practical norms
and the norms of epistemology?
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
Formative Assessment:
500-word critical discussion, Week 7
Assessment:
One 2,500-word essay to be submitted on Monday Week 1 of Summer
Term
Suggested Preliminary
Reading:
RM Chisholm, Perceiving, Part 1. The Ethics of Belief, Cornell University
Press, 1957 Press 1957.
E Sosa, A Virtue Epistemology, Vol. 1, Oxford University Press 2007.
S Berker, ‘Epistemic Teleology and the Separateness of Propositions’, Phil
Rev 2013.
23
PHI00015I
Module Title:
FORMAL LOGIC
Lecture-based Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term (Spring Term)
Students:
Year 2 (particularly recommended for students on the Maths and
Philosophy programme)
Teaching Programme:
Weekly lectures (two hours in weeks 3, 5, 7, and 9) and two seminars
across the term in weeks 6 and 8. Optional one to one feedback on
formative work in weeks 6, 8, and 10. Additional Weekly office hours
where necessary.
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at lectures and seminars. Completion of exercises (due
Fridays of weeks 5, 7 and 9).
Aim:
To introduce a specialist area of philosophy
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:
By the end of the module students should have mastered:
-
Proof by natural deduction on first order quantified predicate
logic with identity
Model theory for first order quantified predicate logic with
identity
Content:
There are four stages to this module. We begin by learning the
concepts and tools of natural deduction in the easy case of sentential
logic. We then see how truth-tables constitute a semantics for that
logic. Next the natural deduction rules are extended to cover quantified
predicate logic with identity. Finally we show how to construct models
– and countermodels – for quantified predicate logic with identity. The
textbook we will use is Logic Primer 2nd edition by Colin Allen and
Michael Hand (MIT Press). The assessment consists of a short exam
during which you will be required to construct proofs and
countermodels for sequents of sentential and predicate logic.
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
Prerequisite: Reason and Argument or Maths A Level (or equivalent)
Formative Assessment:
Three sets of exercises from the text book, completed in weeks 5, 7,
and 9.
Summative Assessment:
Suggested Preliminary
Reading:
A 1-hour exam in Week 1 of Spring Term 2015 A 1-hour exam in the
Summer Term assessment period (Weeks 5 – 7)
Logic Primer 2nd edition by Colin Allen and Michael Hand (MIT Press)
24
PHI00007I
Module Title:
GOD AND MORALITY
Reading Group Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term (Spring Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Weekly 2-hour reading group in Weeks 2 - 10
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all sessions
Aim:


Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:




To investigates whether God must, or even can, provide a foundation for
morality.
To develop students’ abilities to explain clearly, concisely, and accurately a
dialectic, to engage critically with it, and to develop their own views on the
dialectic.
To assess whether features of morality provide evidence for the existence
of God,
To assess divine command theories of meta-ethics,
To assess whether features of religious faith are in tension with
requirements of morality.
To be able to engage critically with a philosophical debate in order to
develop their own, considered view on the debate.
Content:
Does morality have a source? If so, is it God? The module focuses on whether
God grounds morality through a debate between William Lane Craig and Paul
Kurtz and subsequent philosophical commentary found in Robert K. Garcia and
Nathan L. King (eds), Is Goodness without God Good Enough? (Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2009). The debate concerns whether moral truths,
moral values, and moral accountability must be grounded in facts about God,
such as his commands, his nature, and his judgements. The module then
considers whether God could be the source of morality by considering several
arguments attempting to show that God could not be so. Such objections
include: (i) if we are autonomous moral agents, then God could not be the
source of morality, (ii) if there are some necessary moral truths, such as that it
is wrong to torture innocent children, then God could not be the source of
morality, and (iii) that God, at least the God of the Hebrew and Christian
Scriptures, could not be an appropriate source of morality given the evil he
commits. Through examining the debate and the commentary it has produced,
students are able to make up their own mind on the relation between God and
morality.
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
None
Formative Assessment:
500-750 word essay due on Friday of Week 6 of Spring Term
Essay plan due on Monday of Week 8 of the Spring Term
Summative Assessment:
One 2,500-word essay due on Monday Week 1 of Summer Term
Suggested Preliminary
Reading:
William J. Wainwright, Religion and Morality (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005)
25
PHI00017I
Module Title:
HUSSERL’S PHENOMENOLOGY
Reading Group Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term ( Autumn Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Weekly 90-minute reading group in Weeks 2 - 10
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all sessions
Aim:
To enable a close study of a philosophical text
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes :
By the end of the module, students should have:
Content
This module introduces students to Husserl’s ‘transcendental
phenomenology’, focussing on his Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction
to Phenomenology (1931). This is a rewarding (and challenging) text, by
the principal founder of the ‘phenomenological’ approach to
consciousness.


A critical understanding of Husserl’s ‘transcendental phenomenology’
Developed key skills of close reading and criticism
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
Formative Assessment:
Summative Assessment:
Suggested Preliminary
Reading:
500-750 word ‘reading response’ exercise due Friday Week 7
One 2,500-word essay to be submitted on Monday Week 1 of Spring Term
E. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1950.
A.D. Smith, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Husserl and the Cartesian
Meditations. London: Routledge, 2003.
D. Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology. London: Routledge, 1999.
26
PHI00049I
Module Title:
JOHN MCDOWELL ON KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY
Reading Group Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term ( Summer Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Twice weekly 90-minute reading group
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all sessions
Aim:


Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:
By the end of this module students should have:


Content:
To read and discuss critically some of McDowell’s papers, in which he
elaborates accounts of the way in which the external world is not only
available to the mind so that one can have knowledge of it, but figures
directly in the content of our thoughts. Centrally, we shall investigate what
has become one of the most influential positions in contemporary
epistemology; his ‘disjunctivist’ account of perception and perceptual
knowledge.
To develop students’ abilities to explain clearly, concisely, and accurately
some key papers, to engage critically with them, and to develop their own
views.
Acquired a critical understanding of McDowell’s distinctive attack on
Cartesian accounts of the content of thoughts and the conditions for
knowledge of the world.
Have deepened their ability to read contemporary philosophical texts
closely and critically.
John McDowell is one of the most influential contemporary philosophers, whose
work is strikingly subtle and wide-ranging. We shall focus on two aspects of his
challenge to Cartesianism; his claim that we cannot specify the contents of our
thoughts independently of the objects those thoughts are about, and his claim
that our knowledge of the world can be direct. We shall be looking in detail at
some of the most challenging recent work in philosophy of mind, epistemology
and metaphysics.
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if appropriate):
Formative Assessment:
600-800 word essay due in Week 3
Assessment:
2,500 word essay to be submitted on Monday Week 7 of the Summer Term
Key Text:
J. McDowell, Meaning, Knowledge, and Reality
27
PHI00057I
Module Title:
NIETZSCHE ON MORALITY
Reading Group Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term ( Summer Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Twice weekly 90-minute reading group
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all sessions
Aim:




Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:
To read together Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality and related works
by Nietzsche and others.
To enable students to gain an understanding of Nietzsche’s moral psychology,
and his challenge to traditional views on morality, and to assess these.
To develop the skills of close reading and interpretation.
To build confidence in forming and expressing one’s own response to a text
Subject content
 Familiarity with key Nietzschean ideas, including: genealogy, the revaluation of
values, the slave and master moralities, ressentiment, Ubermensch, will to
power.
 Understanding how these ideas function in Nietzsche’s work.
Academic and graduate skills


Developing the skills of close reading and interpretation.
The capacity to assess ideas that are unfamiliar, unconventional and
challenging and develop a independent response to these.
Other learning outcomes (if applicable)
 Building confidence in forming and expressing one’s own response to a text, in
discussion and in writing.
Content:
As outlined in Aims and Objectives, above.
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
None
Formative Assessment:
Reading response exercise in Week 3
Summative Assessment:
2,500 word essay to be submitted on Tuesday Week 7 of the Summer Term
Preliminary reading and Key
Text:
Leiter, B (2002) Nietzsche on Morality. London: Routledge.
Nietzsche, F. (1997/1887) On the Genealogy of Morality (trans. Diethe). Cambridge: CUP.
(Students will need to buy a copy of the Genealogy, either in this edition or in Basic
Writings of Nietzsche (ed Kaufman). New York: Random House (2000), which also
contains Beyond Good and Evil. I will advise further.)
28
PHI00021I
Module Title:
PARADOXES
Lecture-based Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term (Autumn Term)
Students:
Year 2 (particularly recommended for students on the Maths and
Philosophy programme)
Teaching Programme:
Weekly lectures plus four seminars across the term. Feedback on
formative work.
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all lectures and seminars
Aim:
An exploration of some paradoxes which challenge our understanding
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:



Content:
a general grasp of the nature of paradox
a detailed knowledge of some paradoxical arguments
an appreciation of the range and limits of our forms of reasoning
We will examine a selection of the paradoxes discussed in the set text
(Sainsbury’s Paradoxes), in other words, chosen from the following: Zeno’s
paradoxes, moral dilemmas, problems of vagueness, Newcomb’s paradox,
the Prisoner’s Dilemma, paradoxes of confirmation, Russell’s paradox, and
the Liar paradox.
To help you decide on whether to do this course, just answer yes or no to
the following two questions: (1) Will you answer this question in the same
way as the next? (2) Will you take this course?
There will not be a surprise examination, but then again …
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
Formative Assessment:
Summative Assessment:
Suggested Preliminary
Reading (and Set Text):
One exam answer due on Monday Week 7 Autumn Term
A 1-hour exam in Week 1 Spring Term
R. M. Sainsbury, Paradoxes, 3rd ed., Cambridge UP, 2009
29
PHI00061I
Module Title:
PHILOSOPHY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD
Lecture-based Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term ( Summer Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Two lectures and one 90-minute seminar per week
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all sessions
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:
The course will enable students to develop a critical understanding of:



the core developments in the History of Philosophy in the Muslim world,
from the beginning to the present, on the basis of selected primary
readings in English translation
the increasingly complex interdependencies between philosophy,
speculative theology, and mysticism
an appreciation of commonalities and crucial differences between
philosophies in the Muslim world and elsewhere (focus in this context will
mostly be on Western philosophies), bearing in mind the various phases of
intellectual cross-pollination
The course will enable students to acquire the following academic and graduate
skills:
 sensitivity to problems relating to cultural translatability in the field of
philosophy;
 sensitivity to problems relating to linguistic translatability in the field of
philosophy;
 ability to analyse core philosophical texts from the Muslim world;
 appreciation of the role that the social, political and intellectual contexts
play for the formulation of distinct ideas and conceptions by the discussed
main protagonists of philosophy in the Muslim world;
 ability to evaluate the degree of cultural cross-pollination with non-Muslim
philosophies, as well as the impact of distinct religious/Islamic concepts;
 sensitivity to the difficulties in clearly defining “philosophy” in the Muslim
world against concepts of “theology” and “mysticism”, derived from a
critical insight into relevant debates in contemporary academia.
Content:
In this module, students will be introduced to core matters in the history of
philosophy in the Muslim world, from their beginnings to the present day. Selected
chief protagonists of various philosophical orientations in a cultural space very
much informed by the religion of Islam will be introduced, alongside the main
features of their respective philosophical conceptions. In the seminars, exemplary
texts of these thinkers will be read in English translation and critically discussed,
bearing in mind the hermeneutical predicament caused by the translation of
culturally informed languages.
Crucial in this regard is an appreciation of the complex and ever shifting relationship
of philosophy in the Muslim lands with speculative, or scholastic theology (kalām)
and various mystical currents. Therefore, the question of the respective conceptions
of “philosophy” by the authors under review, which result in ever changing labels
30
for what “philosophy” is supposed to mean, will form a threat that runs through the
entire course.
Finally, the role of the increasing interaction with especially Western, i.e. European
and North-American, philosophies since Early Modern times will be discussed, again
with an appreciation of how the notion of “philosophy” is diversely modified as a
result
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
Formative Assessment:
None
One 500-word reading response in Week 2
Summative Assessment:
2,500 word essay to be submitted on Week 7 of the Summer Term
Key texts (indicative):







al-Fārābī, Al-Farabi on the Perfect State: Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī’s Mabādiʾ
ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila, trans. R. Walzer (Oxford: OUP 1985).
Ibn Sīnā, The Metaphysics of the Healing, trans. M.E. Marmura (Provo,
UT: Brigham Young UP 2005).
Ibn Ṭufayl, Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy ibn Yaqzān: A Philosophical Tale, trans. L.E.
Goodman (New York: Twayne 1972).
Ibn Rushd, Averroes on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, trans. R. Arnzen (Berlin
et al.: de Gruyter 2012)
al-Suhrawardī, The Philosophy of Illumination, trans. J. Walbridge et al.
(Provo, UT: Brigham Young UP 1999)
al-Abharī, A Guide to Philosophy, trans. S.A.T. al-Attas (Selangor:
Pelanduk 2009).
Mullā Ṣadrā, The Metaphysics of Mullā Ṣadrā: al-Mashāʾir, or the Book
of Prehensions, trans. P. Morewedge (New York: SSIPS 1992).
31
PHI00008I
Module Title:
PHILOSOPHY OF TIME
Lecture-based Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term (Spring Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Weekly lectures, plus four seminars across the term. Feedback on
formative work.
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all lectures and seminars. Satisfactory preparation for
lectures and seminars.
Aim:
To introduce a specialist area of philosophy, in this case the metaphysics
of time
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:
To introduce students to some of the central philosophical questions
concerning the nature of time, and enable students to engage critically
with recent discussion
Content:
In this module we will consider some of the following central questions
about time. Is time unreal? Can there be time without change? What is
the fundamental nature of temporal reality? Is the present moment
ontologically special (e.g. is it that only present things exist), or do all
actual times, past, present, and future, have equal standing? Does time
flow?
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
Formative Assessment:
One short essay of 500 words, to be submitted in the week following the
second seminar
Summative Assessment:
A 1-hour exam in the Summer Term assessment period (Weeks 5–7)
Suggested Preliminary
Reading:
McTaggart, J. M. E. 1908: ‘The Unreality of Time’. Mind, 17, pp. 457–74.
Prior, Arthur N. 1968: ‘Changes in Events and Changes in Things’, in his
Papers on Time and Tense (Oxford: OUP). Reprinted in Robin Le
Poidevin and Murray MacBeath (eds), The Philosophy of Time.
Oxford, OUP, 1993, pp. 35–46.
32
PHI00058I
Module Title:
READING KIERKEGAARD
Reading Group Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term ( Spring Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Weekly 90-minute reading group in Weeks 2 - 10
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all sessions
Aim:



To read and understand selected readings from Søren
Kierkegaard’s works.
To understand Kierkegaard’s influence on contemporary
philosophy.
To develop students’ abilities to read closely and critically engage
with historical philosophical texts.
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:
By the end of this module students should be able to:
 understand and explain key concepts in Kierkegaard’s writings
 engage critically with Kierkegaard’s writings
 engage with contemporary discussions relating to Kierkegaard’s
works.
Content:
The writings of Søren Kierkegaard have had a wide influence in a
variety of areas of philosophy, including phenomenology, existentialism,
philosophy of religion, ethics and epistemology.
The concept of faith is central to understanding Kierkegaard’s works, and
Kierkegaard describes his authorship as being ‘directly religious…from the
very beginning’. Yet Kierkegaard doesn’t present a single, unified account
of religious faith; rather, he explores the concept of faith through his
pseudonymous authors, discussing faith as an ethical, epistemological,
existential and religious concept. Through this discussion of faith,
Kierkegaard explores the concepts of despair, the ethical, the religious life,
the self, objectivity and subjectivity. These discussions and concepts have
had a significant influence in the history of philosophy.
For Johannes de Silentio (Fear and Trembling), faith is a ‘teleological
suspension of the ethical’, the highest task for a human agent. For
Johannes Climacus (Philosophical Fragments, Concluding Unscientific
Postscript), faith is revealed by God and is an ‘objective uncertainty, held
fast through appropriation with the most passionate inwardness’. For
Anti-Climacus (Sickness Unto Death, Practice in Christianity), faith is the
antidote to despair and provides the religious believer with a
contemporaneity with Christ.
In this module, we explore Kierkegaard’s works through the lens of these
three pseudonymous authors and aim to understand and critically engage
with the issues which arise. Each week we will read an extract from
Kierkegaard’s works (along with some optional supplementary reading)
and discuss them together, attempting both to understand the text and to
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engage with the issues which Kierkegaard raises.
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
None
Formative Assessment:
1) One 750-word essay due on Friday of Week 6
2) One essay plan due on Monday Week 8
Assessment:
One 2,500-word essay to be submitted on Monday Week 1 of Summer
Term
Suggested Preliminary
Reading:
Evans, C. Stephen Kierkegaard: An Introduction, Cambridge University
Press, 2009
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PHI00059I
Module Title:
THE SCIENTIFIC IMAGE
Reading Group Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term ( Spring Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Weekly 90-minute reading group in Weeks 2 - 10
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all sessions
Aim:







The module will explore selected aspects of the epistemological and
existential characteristics of the view of the world adopted by the
natural and human sciences. The aims are:
To deepen students understanding of important debates concerning
theoretical entities.
To consider problems of context and bias relating to the social nature
of the sciences
To explore the implications of naturalism on human selfunderstanding
To develop skills in reading, interpreting, analysing and criticising
philosophical and theoretical texts.
To enhance students’ ability to reflect on purported developments in
physics and the life sciences as they are reported in non-academic
discourse.
To improve writing skills
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:
Subject content
 The student will understand the problems and promise of Empiricism
better. They will be able to take a more thoughtful position on the
debates over ‘scientism’ and ‘reductionism.’ They will be able to take
a more thoughtful position on whether the sciences deliver
knowledge and if they do how social factors and inherited frameworks
can impede the process of knowledge-generation.
Academic and graduate skills
 Analysis of texts, raising of appropriate questions, and writing skills.
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
None
Formative Assessment:
1) One 750-word class presentation
Assessment:
One 2,500-word essay to be submitted on Monday Week 1 of Summer Term
Suggested Preliminary
Reading:
David Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery, University of Chicago, 1991.
Helen Longino, “Can There Be a Feminist Science?”,Hypatia, 2:51–64, 1987.
Slocum, S., “Woman the Gatherer: Male Bias in Anthropology”, in Toward an
Anthropology of Women, R.Reiter, (ed.), Monthly Review Press, 1975.
Stathis Psillos, Knowing the Structure of Nature: Essays on Realism and
Explanation, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Bas Van Fraassen, The Empirical Stance, Yale University Press, 2004.
Alison Wylie, Good Science, Bad Science, or Science as Usual?: Feminist Critiques
of Science”, in Women in Human Evolution, L. D. Hager, (ed.), Routledge, 1997
35
PHI00052I
Module Title:
SEARLE’S SOCIAL ONTOLOGY
Reading Group Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term ( Autumn Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Weekly 90-minute reading group in Weeks 2 - 10
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all sessions

Aim:
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:
By the end of the module students will be able to:




Content:
To read and understand Searle’s The Construction of Social
Reality and related works.

Understand and evaluate the central theses of Searle’s social
ontology and his arguments in support of them.
Understand and explain key concepts such as “observer
relativity”, “epistemic objectivity”, “collective intentionality”,
“status function”, “constitutive rules” etc.
Read and critically engage with complex and difficult
philosophical material.
Develop and defend a considered view on complex and difficult
material.
This module provides an introduction to Searle’s social ontology
as it is elaborated in The Construction of Social Reality and
related works. Through a close reading of these texts, we will
critically examine the central theses of Searle’s social ontology
and his arguments in support of them.
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
Formative Assessment:
Essay plan Week 6 of Autumn Term
Assessment:
2,500 word essay to be submitted on Monday Week 1 of the Spring
Term
Key Text:
Searle, J. The Construction of Social Reality (London: Penguin, 1995)
36
PHI00028I
Module Title:
SEEING DARK THINGS
Reading Group Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term ( Summer Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Twice weekly 90-minute reading group
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all sessions
Aim:
To read and understand Roy Sorensen’s Seeing Dark Things (and possibly
some related papers).
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:



Content:
To read and understand Sorensen’s book, and the significance of
his arguments for broader issues in metaphysics and the
philosophy of perception
To develop the skills necessary to read and critically engage with
a recent philosophical text on an unusual and unfamiliar topic.
To become confident and comfortable in developing your own
views of a text and the issues it raises.
Sorenson’s Seeing Dark Things is a brilliant and unusual book. In it, he
addresses a number of different puzzles about intuitively negative
entities such as holes, shadows and silhouettes, arguing that we do
perceive such negative things and that our perception of them is
consistent with a causal theory of perception.
Each week we will read one or two chapters of the book and, (on
occasion, and if appropriate) some other, supporting material.
Discussion will be guided by a handout, produced each week by a
student (or small group of students), to include a summary of the main
points of the week’s reading, and a short list of questions to be
addressed.
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
Formative Assessment:
Handout (approx. 1000 words) to accompany seminar presentation.
Summative Assessment:
2,500 word essay to be submitted on Monday Week 7 of the Summer
Term
Key Text:
Sorensen, R. 2009. Seeing Dark Things. Oxford: OUP.
You will need to buy a copy of the book: cheap, second-hand copies are
easily found.
37
PHI00060I
Module Title:
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL EPISTEMOLOGY
Reading Group Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term ( Summer Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Twice weekly 2-hour reading group plus one tutorial
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all sessions
Aim:
Subject content
 to read and understand contemporary philosophical papers in social and
political epistemology.
Academic and graduate skills
 to develop students’ abilities to read closely and critically engage with
contemporary philosophical texts.
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:
Subject content
•
to explain central arguments in social and political epistemology
concerning justification, disagreement, knowledge, toleration, and rational humility;
an indicative list of questions to be considered include:
o
What is the epistemic significance of discovering that one of your
beliefs depends on an irrelevant causal factor, e.g. being brought up to
believe it or otherwise influenced by your culture to believe it? Does it
show that these beliefs are unjustified or irrational? Must we at least lower
our confidence in these beliefs?
o
Is there is more than one way to respond rationally to a given
body of evidence? If so, does that show that nurtured beliefs, i.e. beliefs we
were brought up to believe, or beliefs otherwise causally explained by an
irrelevant factor need not be irrational?
o
Does the fact that had we been brought up differently or
members of a different culture, we would have had different moral,
political, and religious beliefs, show that these beliefs cannot amount to
knowledge?
o
Does the fact that many of our moral and political beliefs depend
on irrelevant causal factors, e.g. being brought up to believe it or otherwise
influenced by your culture to believe it, support liberal policies of toleration
and restraint?
o
Does the discovering that many of our beliefs are caused by
irrelevant factors encourage a kind of rational humility?
Academic and graduate skills
•
to be able to engage critically with a complex philosophical dialectic and to
develop their own, considered view on it.
Content:
At some point in all of our lives, we realize that we believe some things simply
because we were brought up to believe them, or they were part of a particular
culture we found ourselves in. And then we see that believing something because
you’re brought up to believe it or because it’s part of your culture isn’t a good
reason to believe something, that is, these causal explanations aren’t relevant to the
truth of these beliefs and aren’t the sort of thing that can be used in justifying these
beliefs. Such realizations often occur in the face of disagreement, when we meet
people brought up differently or members of a different culture, who don’t believe
38
as we do. So we then wonder whether we are rational, or justified, in continuing to
hold these beliefs, or whether, at a minimum, we should reduce our confidence in
them. And this can have a big effect on our social and political lives, because a lot of
the beliefs that fit this profile are religious and political beliefs, at least for many of
us. What should we do when we realize this? Answering this question is the topic of
the module.
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
Formative Assessment:
None
1) One 500-750-word ‘reading response’ exercise for tutorial on Friday of
Week 2
2) One essay plan due on Monday Week 4
Summative Assessment:
One 2,500 word essay to be submitted on Monday Week 7 of the Summer
Term
Key Texts:
Tomas Bogardus, ‘The Problem of Contingency for Religious Belief’, Faith and
Philosophy 30 (2013): 371-92.
G.A. Cohen, If you’re an egalitarian, how come you’re so rich? (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2000), ch. 1.
Ronald Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2011).
Ronald Dworkin, ‘Objectivity and Truth: You'd Better Believe it’ Philosophy and
Public Affairs 25: 87-139.
Adam Elga, ‘Lucky to be Rational’, ms. 2008.
Richard Feldman, ‘Reasonable Religious Disagreement’, in Louise Antony (ed),
Philosophers Without God: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 197-214.
Daniel Garber, ‘Religio Philosophi: Some thoughts on God, Reason, and Faith’, in
Louise Antony (ed), Philosophers Without God: Meditations on Atheism and
the Secular Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 32-40.
Daniel Garber, What Happens After Pascal’s Wager?: Living Faith and Rational Belief
(Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2009).
Gerald Gaus, Justificatory Liberalism: An Essay in Epistemology and Political Theory
(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), ch. 2.
Richard Joyce, The Evolution of Moraltiy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006).
Gideon Rosen, ‘Nominalism, Naturalism, Epistemic Relativism’, Philosophical
Perspectives 15 (2001): 66-91.
Joshua Schechter, ‘Luck, Rationality, and Explanation: A Reply to Elga’s “Lucky to be
Rational”’, ms. 2008.
George Sher, ‘But I Could Be Wrong’, Social Philosophy and Policy 18 (2001): 64-78.
Miriam Schoenfield, ‘Permissivism to Believe: Why Permissivism Is True and What It
Tells Us About Irrelevant Influences on Belief’, Noûs 48 (2014): 193-218.
Sharon Street, ‘A Darwinian Dilemma For Realist Theories of Value’, Philosophical
Studies 127 (2006): 109-66.
Katia Vavova, ‘Irrelevant Influences’, ms.
Roger White, ‘You Just Believe That Because...’, Philosophical Perspectives 24
(2010): 573-615.
Roger White, ‘Epistemic Permissivism’, Philosophical Perspectives 19 (2005): 445459.
39
PHI00038I
Module Title:
SPINOZA’S ETHICS
Reading Group Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term (Autumn Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Weekly 90-minute reading group in Weeks 2 - 10
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all seminars
Aim:
To undertake a close reading of selected passages in Baruch Spinoza’s
Ethics
Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:
By the end of this module, students should have acquired a critical
understanding of:
 the aims and methodology of the Ethics
 a selection of concepts, theses, and arguments in the Ethics
Content
Based on close textual study of Spinoza’s Ethics students will examine
some core theses: that God and Nature are one, that ordinary objects
are mere ‘modes’ of substance, that things could not have been other
than they are, that for every object there is a corresponding idea, that
mind and body cannot causally interact, that the highest good is the
intellectual love of God and how, on Spinoza’s view, humans can
overcome the ‘bondage’ of the emotions and live free and worthwhile
lives.
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
Formative Assessment:
One 500-word essay to be submitted in Week 6 of the Autumn Term
Summative Assessment:
One 2,500-word essay to be submitted on Monday Week 1 of Spring
Term
Suggested Preliminary
Reading:
The text is The Ethics, by B. Spinoza, trans. Samuel Shirley (Hackett
Publishing). It is important that you have this edition (there are other
translations) and you bring it to all meetings.
40
PHI00041I
Module Title:
THOMAS NAGEL’S THE VIEW FROM NOWHERE
Reading Group Module
Assessment Value:
10 credits
Duration of Module:
One Term (Autumn Term)
Students:
Year 2
Teaching Programme:
Weekly 90-minute reading group in Weeks 2 - 10
Procedural Requirements:
Attendance at all seminars
Aim:


Objectives or Learning
Outcomes:




Content:
To read and critically engage with Thomas Nagel’s The View from
Nowhere.
To develop students’ abilities to engage, at length, with an important
contemporary philosophical text.
To understand and be able to explain Nagel’s views on two different
ways we have of viewing the world, and how they are related to one
another.
To see how these views impact upon issues across a range of different
philosophical fields, including Philosophy of Mind, Epistemology
(theory of knowledge) and Ethics.
To be able to read and reflect upon a long piece of philosophical
writing and develop their own, considered view of that work.
To develop skills and confidence in close reading, criticism and
discussion.
The View from Nowhere argues that a single issue is the root of a wide range of
philosophical problems, touching every aspect of human life. This issue is our
ability to view the world in two different ways: firstly, in a ‘detached’ way, that
transcends our own experiences and interests. And secondly, in a ‘personal’
way, that we recognise as involving just one aspect of the world. Nagel
considers how this issue manifests itself in philosophical thought about mind
and body, personal identity, knowledge, free will, ethics and the meaning of
life.
Each week we will read one or two chapters of the book and, (on occasion, and
if appropriate) some other, supporting material.
Discussion will be guided by a handout, produced each week by a student (or
small group of students), to include a summary of the main points of the
week’s reading, and a short list of questions to be addressed.
Prerequisite or Prohibited
Module (if applicable):
Formative Assessment:
Handout (approx. 1000 words) to accompany seminar presentation.
Summative Assessment:
One 2,500-word essay to be submitted on Monday Week 1 of Spring Term
Key Text:
Nagel, T. 1986. The View From Nowhere. Oxford: OUP.
You will need to buy a copy of the book: cheap, second-hand copies are easily
found.
41
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