Honours modules
Before matriculating in September, you must confirm your academic programme for the whole year with the Honours Philosophy Advisor. Changes of modules are permitted only in the first two weeks of each semester—and the Adviser must be consulted again for each change. Any changes of modules, including withdrawals, are unauthorised and may be disregarded unless the Honours Adviser has been consulted about them first.
For Pre-Advising Information for Honours Philosophy 2012/13, please refer to the Guide to Pre-Advising in Honours Philosophy 2012-13. There are printed copies available in the lobby of Edgecliffe. Pre-Advising will open on 23 April 2012.
ID4002 | PY3701 | PY3702 | PY4601 | PY4608 | PY4617 | PY4618 | PY4619 | PY4620 | PY4622 | PY4624 | PY4626 | PY4634 | PY4642 | PY4643 | PY4698 | PY4699 | PY4701
ID4002 Communication and Teaching in Arts and Humanities
15 credits
This module provides final year students within the Faculties of Arts and Divinity with the opportunity to gain first hand experience of education through a mentoring scheme with teachers in local schools. This module will enable students to gain substantial experience of working in a challenging and unpredictable working environment, and to gain a broad understanding of many of the key aspects of teaching in schools.
| Semester: | 1 |
| Credits: | 15 |
| Coordinator: | Lisa Jones |
PY3701 Language and Reality
30 credits
This module covers a range of foundational issues in the philosophy of language and metaphysics. In the language component we shall focus on questions concerning meaning, reference and communication. How can a spoken utterance or a written word be about something external to itself? Who or what decides what a word means? Is there a distinction between meaning and reference? Is it possible to communicate a truth by saying something false? How is it possible to talk about things that do not exist? In the reality component we shall focus on questions concerning the fundamental nature of reality. For example, what is an object? What is existence? How do objects change and persist? How should we distinguish universals from particulars? Are there universals?
| Semester: | 1 |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Time: | Wednesday 11:00am - 1:00pm, School V |
| Teaching: | One 2 hour lecture and one 1 hour seminar. |
| Coordinator: | Ephraim Glick |
| Additional lecturers: | Aaron Cotnoir |
| Tutorial times: | Group 1: Monday 2 - 3, Edgecliffe 104 Group 2: Monday 3 – 4, Edgecliffe 104 Group 3: Tuesday 1 – 2 Edgecliffe 104 Group 4: Tuesday 2 - 3, Soc Anth – Tutorial Room 50 Group 5: Tuesday 3 - 4, Soc Anth – Tutorial Room 50 |
PY3702 Value and Normativity
30 credits
Much of our discourse is normative – characterised by terms such as 'good', 'wrong', 'should', 'reason', 'rational' and so on. We ask, for example, how good a piece of evidence is, what one should feel about something that's been said, what the right thing to do is, whether a person's response was rational.
What are normative claims about (if anything)? Are they about an irreducible realm of value? Can they be said to be true or false? If so, what makes them true or false? And how do we know them to be true or false? Are they expressions of feeling, or of will, rather than of belief? Are there differences in these respects between epistemology and ethics?
Particular attention will be paid to the nature of moral claims. What makes an 'ought' a moral 'ought'? Does morality raise special problems that normative judgements in general do not? Is it relative or subjective in a way that other normative claims are not? Or are they all relative or subjective?
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Time: | Monday 11 – 1, Arts Lecture Theatre |
| Teaching: | One 2 hour lecture and one 1 hour seminar (seminar times tba) |
| Coordinator: | John Skorupski |
| Tutorial times: | Group 1: Monday 3 – 4, Edgecliffe G01 (John Skorupski) Group 2: Monday 4 – 5, Edgecliffe 104 Group 3: Wednesday 10 – 11, Edgecliffe 104 Group 4: Thursday 1 – 2, Edgecliffe G01 |
PY4601 Paradoxes
30 credits
Tensions in our understanding of our concepts and the world can often give rise to paradoxes: situations where we are led from considerations we accept and may even find obvious to conclusions which we find very surprising or even ridiculous. Probably the best way to get a feel for how to deal with paradoxes and the issues which lie behind them is to examine a variety of paradoxes, both ancient and contemporary.
| Semester: | 1 |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Time: | Thursdays 11:00am - 1:00pm, School V |
| Teaching: | One 2 hour lecture and one 1 hour seminar. |
| Coordinator: | Patrick Greenough |
| Tutorial times: | Group 1: Tuesday 12 – 1, Edgecliffe G01 Group 2: Tuesday 4 - 5, Edgecliffe 104 |
PY4608 Political Philosophy in the Age of Revolutions
30 credits
The course aims to examine the influence of philosophical ideas on the political events of the modern period of political revolutions (roughly construed as mid 17th to mid 19th centuries). The Revolutions covered will include The British Civil War, The Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Disturbances of 1848. In each case the focus will be on the influence of particular philosophical writings and concepts; examining how historical events shape philosophical thinking and how philosophical thinking helps shape subsequent historical events. The course will examine how political philosophy shaped the expressed ideology of the revolutionary movements and how this influence was codified in various constitutions and documents. The course will also examine how once revolutionary philosophies transform into defences of the status quo following success in securing political power.
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Time: | Tuesday 2:00pm - 4:00pm, Arts Seminar Room 4 |
| Teaching: | One 2 hour lecture and one 1 hour seminar (seminar times tba). |
| Coordinator: | ya49 |
| Tutorial times: | Group 1: Thursday 9 – 10, Edgecliffe G01 Group 2: Thursday 1 – 2, Edgecliffe 104 Group 3: Thursday 2 – 3, Edgecliffe 104 |
PY4617 Philosophy of Saul Kripke
30 credits
The purpose of this module is to explore the work and influence of contemporary philosopher Saul Kripke. Topics may include the semantics and meta-semantics of names, the semantics of attitude attributions, the metaphysics of modality, the use of possible worlds in semantics, epistemic possibility, fiction and non-existence, identity over time, rule-following and private language, and the mind-body problem.
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Time: | Monday 2 – 4, Edgecliffe G03 |
| Teaching: | 1 x 2-hour lecture and 1 x 1-hour seminar |
| Coordinator: | Ephraim Glick |
| Tutorial times: | Group 1: Thursday 9 - 10, Edgecliffe G03 Group 2: Thursday 3 – 4, Edgecliffe G01 |
PY4618 Animals, Minds and Language
30 credits
This module will focus on philosophical issues related to the attribution of mental states to non-human animals. Do animals have minds? How can we know about them? In what ways are the mental abilities of animals similar to or different from our own? Topics to be discussed may include: are animals rational? To what extent can beliefs and other mental states be attributed to simple creatures such as insects? Can animals feel pain? Can simple creatures feel pain? How can we know whether they do? Do animals have emotions? Do animals have language and culture, or are these distinctively human capacities?
| Semester: | 1 |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Time: | Monday 2 – 4, Arts Seminar Room 4 |
| Teaching: | 1 x 2-hour lecture and 1 x 1-hour seminar |
| Coordinator: | Derek Ball |
| Tutorial times: | Group 1: Tuesday 2 – 3, Edgecliffe G01 Group 2: Tuesday 3 -4, Edgecliffe G01 |
PY4619 Social Philosophy
30 credits
This module is an introduction to contemporary issues and arguments in social philosophy. It will provide some historical introduction and an account of certain key concepts, such as public versus private and individual versus common goods. It will then engage a number of areas of social life and action (such as, for instance, culture, art, economics, law, education, environment) examining contested values and policies. The broad orientation is towards 'practical philosophy'.
| Semester: | 1 |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Time: | Tuesday 3 – 5, Arts Seminar Room 4 |
| Teaching: | 1 x 2-hour lecture and 1 x 1-hour seminar |
| Coordinator: | John Haldane |
| Tutorial times: | Group 1: Monday 1 – 2, Edgecliffe 104 Group 2: Thursday 10 – 11 Edgecliffe G03 Group 3: Thursday 11 – 12 Arche Seminar Room Group 4: Thursday 2 – 3 Arche Seminar Room |
PY4620 Virtue and Vice
30 credits
This module investigates philosophical questions related to the evaluation of character. It asks what virtue and vice consist in, and how questions of the evaluation of character interact with questions about what is morally right or wrong. It examines the influential late twentieth-century critique of consequentialist and deontological theories by philosophers such as Elizabeth Anscombe, Bernard Williams and Alisdair McIntyre, and the modern virtue ethical approaches to morality which emerged in response to this critique. The module examines a variety of approaches to virtue and the evaluation of character, from the views of the Ancients, to Hume, Kant and Mill, and onto contemporary accounts. It also considers the implications of recent empirical work on character.
| Semester: | 1 |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Time: | Tuesday 11 – 1, Arts Seminar Room 3 |
| Teaching: | 1 x 2-hour lecture and 1 x 1-hour seminar |
| Coordinator: | Brian McElwee |
| Tutorial times: | Group 1: Tuesday 2 – 3, Arche Seminar Room Group 2: Tuesday 3 – 4, Arche Seminar Room |
PY4622 Kant's Critical Philosophy
30 credits
The purpose of this module is twofold. First, it examines the foundations of Kant's critical philosophy, often called "transcendental idealism". For this purpose, we shall read selections from Kant's Prolegomena (1783). Secondly, it will explore on of the three "Critiques" Kant wrote as examples of this system: either (i) The Critique of Pure Reason (1781/87, describing the "Copernican Turn" in Metaphysics and Epistemology), (ii) the Critique of Practical Reason (1788, a further exploration of the ethical theory of categorical commands as familiar from the Groundwork) or (iii) the Critique of Judgement (1790, Kant's theory of art and aesthetic judgement).
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Time: | Wednesday 9 – 11, Edgecliffe G03 |
| Teaching: | One 1 hour lecture and one 2 hour seminar (seminar times tba). |
| Coordinator: | Katie Harrington |
| Tutorial times: | Group 1: Tuesday 1 – 2, Edgecliffe G01 |
PY4624 Philosophy of Art
30 credits
This course examines some of the fundamental contemporary debates in aesthetics, including issues concerning the definition of art, the nature of the aesthetic, the relation of intention to interpretation, what it is for a work of art to express something, whether aesthetic properties are real, different theories concerning the value of art, the relation of art to ethics, and creativity in art. In the course of addressing these issues, we will be reading the work of several contemporary aestheticians, including Richard Wollheim, Kendall Walton, Martha Nussbaum, Jerrold Levinson and Noël Carroll.
| Semester: | 1 |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Time: | Mondays 10-12, Arts Lecture Theatre |
| Teaching: | One 2 hour lecture and one 1 hour seminar. |
| Coordinator: | Lisa Jones |
| Tutorial times: | Group 1: Thursday 11 – 12, Edgecliffe Room G01 Group 2: Thursday 12 – 1, Edgecliffe Room G01 Group 3: Thursday 3 – 4, Edgecliffe Room G01 |
PY4626 Life and Death
30 credits
How should we think about moral problems concerning life and death? Choices about whose life to save and whom to allow to die have to be made, in health services and elsewhere. Some actions which aim at good ends will endanger lives. How should we think about decisions such as these? This module is not a 'moral problems' module. Instead it deals with the following general questions concerning life and death: Is death bad? In virtue of what is life good? Is there a morally significant difference between killing and letting die, or between intending someone's death and merely foreseeing it? On what principles would one choose between lives, when the choice is forced? How should future lives be taken into account in present decisions? What principles should guide reproductive decisions?
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Time: | Tuesday 11:00am - 1:00pm, Castlecliffe Lecture Room F2 |
| Teaching: | One 2 hour lecture and one 1 hour seminar (seminar times tba). |
| Coordinator: | Ben Sachs |
| Tutorial times: | Group 1: Thursday 11 – 12, Arts Seminar Room 4 Group 2: Thursday 2 – 3, Edgecliffe G01 Group 3: Thursday 3 – 4, Edgeliffe 104 |
PY4634 Philosophy of Logic
30 credits
The module covers philosophical issues that arise in connection with the foundation of logic. These include questions like "What is the correct logic, and how would we know?"; questions about how to understand what truth is, and paradoxes that arise from trying to provide a consistent account of truth; questions about how to handle vagueness in a logical system; and questions about the nature of possibility and necessity.
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Time: | Wednesday 11-1, Edgecliffe G01 |
| Teaching: | 2 lectures and 1 seminar |
| Coordinator: | {staff ac117) |
| Tutorial times: | Group 1: Thursday 1-2 Edgeliffe G03 |
PY4642 Trust, Knowledge and Society
30 credits
Traditional epistemology often focuses on the individual knower in isolation. In contrast, this module explores the ways in which our relations to other people affect what we can know. We begin by focusing on trust and testimony. Under what conditions can we obtain knowledge from one another? Do we need prior evidence of other people's trustworthiness, or can we take what they say at face value? Do we have a moral obligation to take other people seriously as informants? Can groups of people collectively know something even if none of the individual members knows it? Moving on, we will discuss the following questions: do we require less evidence to trust those with whom we have special relationships of love and friendship? If I learn that another "epistemic peer" disagrees with me, must I revise my belief, or may I stick to my guns? Can two people who confront the same evidence rationally form different beliefs? To what extent can there be non-evidential reasons to believe, as opposed to non-evidential causal effects on belief?
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Time: | Thursday 2 – 4, Edgecliffe G03 |
| Teaching: | 1 x 2-hour lecture and 1 x 1-hour seminar |
| Coordinator: | Jessica Brown |
| Additional lecturers: | Katherine Hawley |
| Tutorial times: | Group 1: Tuesday 12 – 1, Edgeliffe G01 Group 2: Wednesday 11-12, Edgeliffe G03 |
PY4643 Philosophy of Law
30 credits
The purpose of this module is to explore such topics in and concerning law as the nature of law; legal reasoning; the justification of punishment; the proper scope of the criminal law (with particular attention to paternalism and legal moralism); the principles of criminal liability and mens rea issues; justifications and excuses; and specific defences in the criminal law such as self-defence and the heat of passion defence.
| Semester: | 2 |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Time: | Thursday 11 - 1, Arts Seminar Room 1 |
| Teaching: | 1 x 2-hour lecture and 1 x 1-hour seminar |
| Coordinator: | Marcia Baron |
| Tutorial times: | Group 1: Friday 11 – 12, Edgeliffe 104 Group 2: Friday 12 – 1, Edgeliffe 104 Group 3: Friday 2 – 3, Edgeliffe 104 |
PY4698 Dissertation (Whole Year)
30 credits
This module aims to develop the philosophical skills of literature review, accurate exposition, clear analysis, and critical thinking for oneself, by writing a dissertation on a selected topic, with the supervision of a tutor. A student must secure the agreement of a member of staff to supervise the work, and submit the Dissertation Proposal Form for the approval of the Honours Adviser before the end of advising Semester One.
The dissertation is completed over two semesters - worth 15 credits for each of two semesters - and is available only to students in the second year of the Honours Programme.
| Semester: | Whole year |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Teaching: | Monthly meetings over two semesters. |
PY4699 Dissertation in Philosophy
30 credits
This module aims to develop the philosophical skills of literature review, accurate exposition, clear analysis, and critical thinking for oneself, by writing a dissertation on a selected topic, with the supervision of a tutor. A student must secure the agreement of a member of staff to supervise the work, and submit the appropriate Dissertation Proposal Form for the approval of the Honours Adviser before the end of advising Semester One.
The dissertation is completed in one semester and is available only to students in the second year of the Honours Programme.
| Semester: | 1 or 2 |
| Credits: | 30 |
| Teaching: | Fortnightly meetings over one semester |
| Notes: | Available only to students in the second year of the Honours Programme. |
PY4701 Philosophy and Pedagogy
15 credits
This module is a complement to ID4002 - Communication and Teaching in Arts & Humanities (a placement module in which students gain substantial experience of a working educational environment, and of communicating philosophical ideas or themes to school pupils). In this module, students will have the opportunity to carry out further study into the place of philosophy in education and/or the role of philosophy in teaching. This is a guided self-study module, which will be supervised by a member of philosophy staff. It is available only to participants in ID4002.
| Semester: | 1 |
| Credits: | 15 |
| Time: | To be arranged. |
| Notes: | Available only to students taking ID4002 in same semester. |
| Coordinator: | John Haldane |