Taught postgraduate modules
PY5099 | PY5101 | PY5102 | PY5103 | PY5201 | PY5202 | PY5203 | PY5205 | PY5302 | PY5308 | PY5312 | PY5318 | PY5319 | PY5325 | PY5402 | PY5403
PY5099 Dissertation for M.Litt. Programme/s
60 credits
Student dissertations will be supervised by members of the teaching staff who will advise on the choice of subject and provide guidance throughout the research process. The completed dissertation of not more than 15,000 words must be submitted by the end of August.
| Semester: | Unknown |
| Credits: | 60 |
| Time: | At times to be arranged with the supervisor |
| Teaching: | Individual Supervision |
PY5101 Current Issues in Philosophy I
20 credits
This module, together with PY5102: Current Issues in Philosophy II in semester 2, covers recent work in four central areas of philosophy, each of them in a section of 11 hours. The four areas are Epistemology, Ethics, Philosophy of Language and Philosophy of Mind.
Epistemology and Philosophy Mind will be covered in PY5101, Ethics and Philosophy Language will be covered in PY5102.
The Epistemology section will include topics from among the following: definition of knowledge; tracking and reliability conditions for knowledge; modal requirements on knowledge (safety and sensitivity); scepticism, contextualism and closure; belief and degrees of belief.
The Philosophy of Mind section will include the following topics: the relation between the mental and the physical; mental causation; consciousness; rationalizing explanation; the normative dimension of mentality.
| Semester: | 1 |
| Credits: | 20 |
| Time: | Monday, 11am - 1pm, Pathfoot Building, Room C1/C2, Stirling |
| Coordinator: | Alan Millar and Philip Ebert |
PY5102 Current Issues in Philosophy II
20 credits
This module continues the critical survey of recent work in philosophy begun in PY5101. PY5102 covers Ethics and Philosophy of Language as main components.
The Ethics section will include topics from among the following: consequentialism, deontology, moral pluralism; double effect and/or the distinction between acts and omissions; the nature of moral justification, critiques and defences of impartial moral theory, questions in meta-ethics.
The Philosophy of Language section will include topics from among the following: how words come to have content, the relation between use, meaning and saying, the relation between meaning, truth, and reference.
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 20 |
| Time: | Thursday, 9am - 10am, Seminar Room 1, Arts Building |
| Teaching: | 22 hours over semester. |
| Coordinator: | Simon Prosser and Herman Cappelen |
PY5103 Research Methods
20 credits
The Research Methods module is a core module for all students taking the Graduate Diploma or M.Litt. within the SASP programme. The module aims to foster the range of skills required for independent research in philosophy. These skills run from the most concretely practical, such as knowledge of the main research resources and how to access them (how to make good use of the library, online and paper bibliographical indexes, philosophical dictionaries, encyclopaedias and companions) to the most abstract, such as the ability to uncover the background and context of a specific issue (how it originated, what framework is presumed in a particular author's treatment of it, what other ways of thinking of the issue might be available, what literature is relevant to it, and so forth) in a way that allows one to develop an independent conception of how the issue is best addressed.
| Semester: | 1 |
| Credits: | 20 |
| Time: | Monday, 3pm - 4:30pm, Pathfoot Building, Room C1/C2, Stirling |
| Coordinator: | Peter Sullivan |
PY5201 Classical Philosophy
20 credits
The module will address topics in ancient metaphysics and ethics concentrating on selected readings from the works of Plato or Aristotle.
| Semester: | 1 |
| Credits: | 20 |
| Time: | Thursday, 10am - 12noon, Room 104, Edgecliffe |
| Teaching: | 22 hours. |
| Coordinator: | Sarah Broadie |
PY5202 Philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment
20 credits
The 'Scottish Enlightenment' of the eighteenth century was an extraordinary cultural event which saw great achievements in fields as diverse as chemistry and political economy, poetry and jurisprudence, and agriculture and architecture. This module will focus on the philosophical dimension of the Scottish Enlightenment, concentrating on works by Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Adam Smith, and Thomas Reid. The module will address issues in metaphysics and epistemology, the philosophy of religion, moral philosophy, and political philosophy. Introductory reading: James Buchan, Capital of the Mind: How Edinburgh Changed the World (John Murray, 2003).
| Semester: | 1 |
| Credits: | 20 |
| Time: | Seminar Room 8, Arts Building, St Andrews |
| Teaching: | 22 hours. |
| Coordinator: | Craig Smith |
PY5203 Kant
20 credits
This module will focus on Kant's critical philosophy. The primary text will be the 'Doctrine of Right', first published in 1797. The Cambridge translation (ed. M. Gregor) is recommended. Further reading: S. Byrd and J. Hruschka, "Kant's Doctrine of Right: A Commentary", Cambridge UP, 2010; A. Ripstein, "Force and Freedom: Kant's Legal and Political Philosophy", Harvard UP, 2009.
| Semester: | 1 |
| Credits: | 20 |
| Time: | Tuesday, 10am - 12noon, Room 104, Edgecliffe |
| Teaching: | 22 hours over semester. |
| Coordinator: | Jens Timmermann |
PY5205 Origins and History of Analytic Philosophy
20 credits
The object of this module is to provide an introduction to central themes in the work of some of the founding figures of the analytic tradition in the late 19th and early 20th century. The primary focus of the module will be on developments in logic and its philosophy initiated in Frege's work and continued in Cambridge by Russell, the early Wittgenstein, and Ramsey.
| Semester: | 1 |
| Credits: | 20 |
| Time: | Thursday, 12noon - 2pm, Room 104, Edgecliffe |
| Teaching: | 22 hours. |
| Coordinator: | Peter Sullivan |
PY5302 Advanced Logic B
20 credits
This module gives a basic grounding in the techniques of metatheory in logic, concentrating on the Henkin method for establishing the completeness of a logical system. Some associated topics, such as semantics for modal predicate logic, will be discussed.
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 20 |
| Time: | Wednesday, 11am - 1pm, Room 104, Edgecliffe |
| Teaching: | 22 hours. |
| Coordinator: | Peter Milne |
PY5308 Philosophy of Perception
20 credits
This module will be a study of perception as a topic in the philosophy of mind and in the theory of knowledge. As well as considering the nature of perception and of perceptual experience, it will explore how perception can yield knowledge. Specific topics covered will include sense-datum theory, causal theories of perception, disjunctive theories of perceptual experience, and recent thinking on the phenomenal character and content of perceptual experience.
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 20 |
| Time: | Monday, 10am - 12noon, Room 104, Edgecliffe |
| Teaching: | 22 hours |
PY5312 Aesthetics
20 credits
This module will consider a number of philosophical questions that arise from reflection on the creation, understanding and evaluation of works of art. Topics to be covered may include the nature of art and the aesthetic, the logic of aesthetic judgement, aesthetic value, interpretation and appreciation.
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 20 |
| Time: | Thursday, 3pm - 5pm, Room G01, Edgecliffe |
| Teaching: | 22 hours. |
| Coordinator: | Berys Gaut |
PY5318 Political Philosophy
20 credits
This module will focus on liberalism and its critics. We will examine liberalism's central features and explore the variety of liberal theories (from minimal-state 'classical liberalism' to 'welfare capitalism'). Criticisms of liberalism take many forms, and initially we shall investigate the contemporary communitarian critique of liberalism. If time permits we may also look at some feminist theories which are critical of both liberalism and communitarianism.
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 20 |
| Time: | Friday, 2pm - 4pm, Room 104, Edgecliffe |
| Teaching: | 22 hours over semester. |
| Coordinator: | Rowan Cruft and Simon Hope |
PY5319 Topics in Recent Moral Theory
20 credits
This module aims to provide in-depth critical discussion of selected work in ethics from the last five years or so. Topics will be chosen in consultation with students. The module may range into meta-ethics as well as normative moral theory and will take the form of seminars with detailed discussion of a selected book or series of papers.
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 20 |
| Time: | Tuesday, 2pm - 4pm, Room 104, Edgecliffe |
| Teaching: | 22 hours. |
| Coordinator: | Elizabeth Ashford |
PY5325 Texts in Contemporary Metaphysics
20 credits
This module will consist of a close reading of a selected contemporary text in metaphysics.
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 20 |
| Time: | Friday, 11am - 1pm, Room 104, Edgecliffe |
| Teaching: | Two hour seminar. |
| Coordinator: | Katherine Hawley |
PY5402 Advanced Epistemology
20 credits
In this module we will address a range of advanced issues in contemporary Epistemology. Topics will include: Basic Knowledge, Contextualist and Relativist Theories of Knowledge, Epistemic Closure, Secptical Paradoxes, Lottery Paradoxes, Self-knowledge, The possibility of Apriori Knowledge, Knowledge and Assertion, Knowledge and Practical Interests, Internalism and Externalism, Fallibilisim, Intuition, Reliabilism, Minimalist Theories of Knowledge.
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 20 |
| Time: | Monday, 2pm - 4pm, Room 104, Edgecliffe |
| Teaching: | 22 hours. |
| Coordinator: | Sonia Roca-Royes |
PY5403 Intuitions and Philosophical Methodology
20 credits
In this module we will address a range of issues concerning philosophical methodology and the use of intuitions in philosophy. Topics will include: the nature of intuition; how intuitions are and should be used iwithin philosophy; positive accounts of intuition (rationalist, phenomenalist, naturalistic, conceptualist, eliminativist); skeptical challenges to the use of intuitions (from calibration, disagreement, experimental philosophy results).
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 20 |
| Time: | Tuesday, 9am - 11am, Room 104, Edgecliffe |
| Teaching: | 22 hours. |
| Coordinator: | Jessica Brown |