PHILOSOPHY

Credit Points

10

Course Coordinator

Dr P Tomassi

Pre-requisites

None

Notes

This is a 6 week course.

Overview

Logic concerns argument. The central problem for the logician is how to tell good arguments from bad arguments. The classical formal logician’s solution to that problem is the subject-matter of this course.
Students are taught to assess natural language arguments in terms of the logical standards of validity and soundness. A formal language for Propositional Logic is then introduced. Students are taught how to represent arguments formally and are enabled to exploit the formal techniques of proof and truth-tables. Finally, students are introduced to the language of Quantificational Logic and are enabled to translate natural language sentences of various kinds and complete arguments into that formal language.

Structure

3 one-hour lectures, 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 one-hour written examination (100%). A pass in the class test will exempt candidates from the examination.

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

Credit Points

20

Course Coordinator

Professor G Graham

Pre-requisites

None

Overview

This course aims to help students think clearly, and reason cogently, about some of the most fundamental questions of philosophy. What is the basis of our political obligation? Can human beings know right from wrong? Can specific moral problems - abortion, capital punishment, the treatment of animals - be rationally resolved? What is the relation of art to representation, expression and imagination? Are there significant differences in this respect between different art froms? This course will focus on a selection of philosophical questions of this kind and, in the process, will give particular emphasis to critical thinking and the capacity for clear expression and cogent reasoning in the attempt to provide answers to such questions.

Structure

3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial (or 1 one-hour workshop session) (to be arranged) per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and continuous assessment (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and continuous assessment (30%).

Credit Points

10

Course Coordinator

Dr P Tomassi

Pre-requisites

PH 1010

Notes

This is a 6 week course.

Overview

Formal Logic 2 extends the study of Formal Logic from the point at which Formal Logic 1 left off. As such, this course involves a more detailed treatment of both Propositional and Quantificational Logic and enables students to exploit further the formal techniques of proof and truth-trees both in Propositional and Quantificational Logic. The course also examines in some detail the logic of Relations and of Identity. The Formal Semantics of Quantificational Logic are considered and the notion of an Interpretation is explained. Time permitting, the course may also include an introduction to alternative systems of Formal Logic, ie Relevance and Intuitionist Logic.

Structure

3 one-hour lectures, 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 one-hour written examination (100%). A pass in class examination will exempt candidates from the examination.

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

Credit Points

20

Course Coordinator

Dr P Tomassi

Pre-requisites

None

Overview

This course aims to help students think clearly, and reason cogently, about some of the most fundamental questions of philosophy. What is knowledge? Can human beings ever attain knowledge? If so, how? What is the nature of truth? Is truth just a matter of what is 'true for me' or 'true for you'? Is there ultimately any such thing as truth? Can the existence of God be proved? If so, how? Do space and time exist as real entities? And what exactly is reality? This course will focus on a selection of metaphysical and epistemological questions of this kind and, in the process, will give particular emphasis to critical thinking and the capacity for clear expression and cogent reasoning in the attempt to provide answers to such questions.

Structure

3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial (or 1 one-hour workshop session) (to be arranged) per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and continuous assessment (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and continuous assessment (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr J Reid

Pre-requisites

At least 40 Credit Points from Level 1 Philosophy courses.

Overview

The course will identify major themes and topics in the development of Western Philosophy from the philosophy of ancient Greece to the medevial period. Detailed attention will be given to selected themes and topics in metaphysics, epistemology and ethics and their treatment in the relevant centuries. Amongst the authors to be considered will be Plato, Aristole, Augustine and Aquinas. The selection will always be designed to illustrate the philosophical background of major philosophers, to compare earlier with later treatments of particular philosophical questions, and to bring out the influence of earlier discussions on later, including current, philosophical investigation. Primary sources, in translation, will be used as well as secondary material.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour examination (70%) and continuous assessment (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and continuous assessment (30%). NB: New continuous assessment must be submitted.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Professor G Graham

Pre-requisites

At least 40 Credit Points from Level 1 Philosophy courses.

Notes

This course will run in either the first or second half-session. More precise information will be available from the course co-ordinator or Undergraduate Programme Co-ordinator prior to commencement of classes.

Overview

This course has two elements. Half of the course is devoted to considering topics in moral theory and meta-ethics. In particular, questions of whether there is such a thing as moral knowledge; whether moral properties like kindness and cruelty are ‘real’ or ‘subjective’; whether there are any universal standards. The second element of the course will address the relationship between art, ethics and aesthetics. Topics in the second element of the course include the objectivity or subjectivity of aesthetic and moral judgements, the relationship between art and moral understanding, and the role of ethics in the evaluation of art.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour examination (70%) and continuous assessment (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%). NB: New continuous assessment work must be submitted.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr P Tomassi

Pre-requisites

At least 40 Credit Points from Level 1 Philosophy courses.

Notes

This course will run in either the first or second half-session. More precise information will be available from the course co-ordinator or Undergraduate Programme Co-ordinator prior to commencement of classes.

Overview

The course aims to enable students to engage critically with a variety of central topics in the philosophies of mind, language and science. In each case, students are introduced to important positions and key debates in contemporary philosophical discussions of mind, language and science. Thus, for example, the course may explore such fundamental questions as the nature of persons, the importance of language to philosophy, the aim of science, the nature of scientific reasoning and the science-religion debate.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour examination (70%) and continuous assessment (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour examination (70%). NB: New continuous assessment work must be submitted.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr J Reid

Pre-requisites

At least 40 Credit Points from Level 1 Philosophy courses.

Overview

This course will trace a number of related themes in 17th and 18th century Philosophy. Topics will include the problem of method; the criterion of truth and certainty; approaches to knowledge and scepticism in empiricist and rationalist philosophers; the nature of mind; the theory of substance; faith, reason and God; and philosophy and science. Primary sources will be used as well as secondary material. The precise content of the course may change from year to year.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour examination (70%) and continuous assessment (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour examination (70%). NB: New continuous assessment work must be submitted.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr P Baumann

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2504 and PH 2505.

Overview

This course involves a close study of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, including his distinction between analytic and synthetic judgements, his doctrine of categories, his theories of space and time, his doctrine of transcendental idealism, and his approach to the traditional problems of metaphysics.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr P Tomassi

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2504 and PH 2505.

Overview

The course will study Locke’s theory of knowledge, as contained in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding: his rejection of innatism, his “New Way of Ideas”, his doctrine of substance and of primary and secondary qualities, his accounts of personal identity, language and the extent of human knowledge. The second part of the course will examine the philosophy of Berkeley, principally in the Three Dialogues and the Principles, with special reference to his arguments for idealism and his critique of Locke.

Structure

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

Assessment

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

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

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Professor G Graham

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course will explore the philosophical foundations of a global ethic. It will compare three main approaches (scepticism, internationalism and cosmopolitanism) as well as several versions of cosmopolitanism (Kantianism, Human Rights, Contractarianism). It will also consider issues of international justice, the ethics of warfare, the moral status of the nation-state and the idea of global governance. It would primarily be for Philosophy students and would presuppose some familiarity with moral/political philosophy. Students doing IR or other subjects are welcome to do this course even if they have not done moral philosophy before, but should expect the first few weeks to be fairly challenging. [See PI 3019 for a similar course designed primarily for International Relations students, and also PH 4508 as a course in the second half-session which naturally follows on from this course.]

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%), continuous assessment: long essay (20%), seminar contribution (10%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr P Tomassi

Pre-requisites

PH 1005 and PH 1303. Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course picks up the study of formal logic from the point at which PH 1303 left off. PH 3030 consists of three core elements. First, students are introduced to contemporary computer-based approaches to formal logic and the distinctive ways in which such programmes revise and extend traditional conceptions of formal logic. Specifically, the following programmes are considered: Paul Tomassi’s Logic: a web-based proof-constructor/proof checker for first-order logic with polyadic relations and identity, Tarski’s World: a computer-based approach to formal semantics, Hyperproof: a programme which extends traditional conceptions of proof in formal logic. The emphasis in this part of the course is on self-directed learning. Propositional and quantificational systems of modal logic are then considered via a modalised version of the truth-tree method. Finally, issues in logic and computability (including the halting problem) are considered via the programme Turing’s World.

Structure

2 one-hour meetings per week. Note: for part one of the course only one of the two meetings will involve teaching, the remaining session is intended to allow students to enhance their abilities by using relevant programmes.

Assessment

Continuous assessment (100%) : Assessment is continuous throughout, ie students are required to submit solutions to set exercises at regular intervals.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr P Tomassi

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2505 and PH 2506.

Overview

The main theme of this course is the question whether the study of society by, eg, historians and sociologists can take the form of a ‘science of man’ using methods of explanation that are fundamentally similar to those of the natural sciences. The course begins with a discussion of philosophy of natural science. Subsequently three major approaches to the philosophy of social science are examined – the naturalism of Karl Popper, R G Collingwood’s Anti-Naturalism and M Weber’s ‘mixed theory’ combining naturalist and anti-naturalist elements. The course concludes with a discussion of the causal theory of motivation and its relevance for the philosophy of social science.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Professor G Graham

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2504 and PH 2505.

Notes

This course will run in either the first or the second half-session. More precise information will be available from the course co-ordinator or Undergraduate Programme Co-ordinator prior to commencement of classes. This course is a compulsory course for Single and Joint Honours in Philosophy and an option for the Designated Degree.

Overview

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

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr P Baumann

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2504 and PH 2505.

Notes

This course will run in either the first or the second half-session. More precise information will be available from the course co-ordinator or Undergraduate Programme Co-ordinator prior to commencement of classes. This course is a compulsory course for Single and Joint Honours in Philosophy, and an option for the Designated Degree.

Overview

The course will explore developments in the philosophy of language including work building upon the thinking of Frege and Wittgenstein, and consideration of the relation of language to speech. The course will also examine various of the recently proposed accounts of the nature of mind and will explore how our understanding of mind and our understanding of language are interrelated. The content of this course may vary a little from year to year.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr P Baumann

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2505 and PH 2506.

Overview

What is the meaning of life? While this question does appear to be intelligible, it may also seem to be a question that might just be too big for us to answer in a satisfying way. Closer scrutiny reveals that the meaning of the question "What is the meaning of life?" cannot simply be taken for granted. Indeed, some philosophers have even suggested that, ultimately, the question does not make any sense. This course will engage critically with several philosophical attempts to make sense of this fundamental question and may even propose an answer to it.

Time permitting, the course will also deal with related topics such as the badness of death and (the nature of) human nature. More specifically, topics will include most of, but are not confined to:

• What exactly does the question "What is the meaning of life?" and related questions mean?
  
• Different strategies of answering or dealing with those question(s).
  
• Death and whether it is bad.
  
• The human condition.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%). Coursework only to be resubmitted if a pass not achieved on the first submission.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr N Shackel

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2505 and PH 2506.

Notes

This course is available subject to sufficient student demand.

Overview

The idea that there are limits to what we can think, know, state or understand has always been a prominent theme in philosophy. Are there really such limits? If so, what are they and what produces them? What is the relation between the limits of thought and the limits of language? Does the source of the traditional problems of philosophy lie in our conceptual limits rather than in the entities about which we philosophise? Or, is the idea that conception is limited itself incoherent? Thinking about the limits of thought seems always to lead to paradoxes and contradictions. Can we go further, and claim that there is a systematic link between the two? In this course, we will explore what philosophers have had to say about these questions.

More specifically topics will include most of, but will not be confined to

• Cognitive closure


• The reach of thought: conceivability and inconceivability


• Whether our reach exceeds our grasp: the limits of expression.


• The community of thinkers: minimal rationality


• Limits of language and the limits of the world: language all the way down?


• Thought, finitude and the infinite


• The threat of paradoxes


• The limits of thought as the loci of true (?) contradictions


• Self enclosure and reflection problems: vicious circles and explanatory self enclosure.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%). Coursework only to be resubmitted if a pass not achieved on the first submission.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr J Reid

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2505 and PH 2506.

Notes

This course is available subject to sufficient student demand.

Overview

Ths course is designed as a companion to 'Theories of Extension in Early Modern Philosophy' though it will not presuppose any of the results of that course and can be taken independently. Where 'Theories of Extension in Early Modern Philosophy' uses the notion of "extension" as an entry point into seventeenth and eighteenth century metaphysics at large, this course approaches the epistemology of the same period, by way of an examination of the idea of an "idea" (together with related notions such as "notions", "sensations", "images", "impressions", etc). Topics to be addressed may include some or all of the following: divine ideas and the objects of human thought; corporeal and incorporeal ideas; unthinking minds and thinking matter; direct realism versus the "veil of perception"; unconscious perception; innate ideas; abstract ideas; idealism; knowledge of spiritual objects.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%). Coursework only to be resubmitted if a pass not achieved on the first submission.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Professor G Graham

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2505 and PH 2506.

Overview

The course examines Reid's conception of Common Sense and the philosophical significance he abscribes to it. Other topics include Reid's treatment of perception, memory, personal identity, human action, freedom, and morality. In addition to examining Reid's relationship to Hume some consideration is also given to the relationship of Reid's thought to Kant's transcendental philosophy and to Husserl's phenomenology.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Professor G Graham

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2504 and PH 2505.

Overview

This course deals with Kant’s ethical theory as part of his system of philosophy. In the account of nature given in the Critique of Pure Reason, everything which happens is causally necessitated, but human beings are moral agents, able to form a conception of how the world ought to be and freely to determine their own actions. The moral law is grounded in this freedom. The charge that Kant’s ethical theory is an ‘empty formalism’ is examined.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Professor G Graham

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2504 and PH 2505.

Overview

The course constitutes a survey of the main topics of jurisprudence together with a closer study of certain central topics. All of the following will be touched upon, with some being considered in some depth: theories of what a law is; the nature of a legal system; the enforcement of morals; theories of punishment; legal reasoning; and the authority of law. The course will consider the contribution to the subject made by writers such as Kant, Bentham, Austin, Hart, Devlin, Kelsen and Dworkin. The detailed content of the course varies from year to year.

Structure

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

Assessment

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

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

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr P Tomassi

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2504 and PH 2505.

Notes

This course will be available subject to sufficient student demand.

Overview

The course will cover some or all of the following, depending on the background knowledge of those taking the course: observation and interpretation in science; scientific inference - induction, confirmation and falsification; laws, dispositions, powers and counterfactual conditionals; rationality in scientific enquiry; the Kuhn/Feyerabend/Lakatos debate; scientific theories - their role in explanation; realist, instrumentalist and conventionalist views of their status.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Professor G Graham

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

This course will explore the ethical and philosophical issues which arise in connection with some area of personal or social morality in which there is ethical controversy, such as life and death issues in medicine or bioethics, punishment, or the treatment of animals. It will seek to show the connections between particular issues and broader ethical theories, and encourage students to think dispassionately and critically about the issues discussed.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Professor G Graham

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2505 and PH 2506.

Overview

This course will explore a selection of philosophical topics from the writings of Plato and Aristotle on metaphysics, epistemology, logic, ethics, aesthetics and political philosophy.

Structure

12 lectures and 6 seminars.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Professor G Graham

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2504 and PH 2505.

Co-requisites

DR 4537

Overview

The course aims to develop abilities in critical philosophical analysis of concepts used in philosophical reflection on religion, to enable students to discuss philosophical issues relating to religion, both orally and in writing.

This is a course, not in philosophical theology, but in philosophy of religion, seen as the concern to understand the place and phenomenon of religion in the spectrum of human experience. It seeks to locate religion among other human practices, especially art, history, science, philosophy and morality. Questions to be considered include: what is the relation between religion and theology? Is there a conflict between modern science and traditional religion? Can God act in history, and if so can we know this? Why does religion make so much use of art forms? Does religion transcend or perfect morality or is it irrelevant to it?

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: Examination (70%) and continuous assessment: essay (30%).

Resit: Examination (70%) and continuous assessment: essay (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr P Baumann

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2505 and PH 2506.

Overview

The course will examine the chief metaphysical and epistemological ideas of René Descartes – the philosopher who in many respects can be rightly regarded as the ‘father’ of modern philosophy. The topics discussed will include: the problem of method, as presented and solved by Descartes; the function of Cartesian doubt; the significance and consequences of Descartes’ first principle: “I think therefore I am”; Cartesian dualism of res cogitans and res extensa; the role of God in Descartes’ system and his demonstrations of the existence of God; the problem of error; and the existence of the external world.

Structure

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

Assessment

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

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

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Professor G Graham

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above.

Overview

The course explores the nature of aesthetic experience, art appreciation, the aesthetic attitude and the artist's intention and considers questions about the relationship between art and truth and art and life. It involves study of classical philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle and contemporary philosophers such as Hospers, Beardsley, Dickie, Wittgenstein, Mandelbaum and Cioffi.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Mr D Braine

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2505 and PH 2506

Overview

This course will consider what is distinctive in Aquinas's understanding of God as first cause, of the simplicity of God as pure act, and of analogy. It will then consider the structure of his ethics, including his view of the nature of human happiness, the virtues related to community, and natural law. It will require study of some selected texts from Aquinas.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay on a new topic (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr J Reid

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2505 and PH 2506.

Notes

This course is available subject to sufficient student demand.

Overview

The notion of extension provides a route into several of the most central issues of metaphysics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (and, indeed, physics, as well as some epistemology). We will look at all of the major figures of the period (Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Newton, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant), each of whom had an important and a quite unique contribution to make to the cluster of interwoven debates surrounding this issue. A number of relatively less well known figures will also be discussed (Gassendi, More, Guericke, Malebranche, Bayle, Clarke, Edwards etc). Topics to be addressed include the following: the nature of matter; the possibility (or otherwise) of immaterial extension; the spatial presence of spirits, both created and divine; void space; absolute space; infinite divisibility vs atomism; idealist approaches to extension.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%). Coursework only to be resubmitted if a pass not achieved on the first submission.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr C Jaeger

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2505 and PH 2506.

Overview

Are religious beliefs rational - or justified, warranted, intellectually acceptable? If so, which conditions and constraints must they meet? The course will discuss these questions mainly with respect to theistic beliefs and with a special focus on the Christian tradition. It will address in particular: (i) classical topics from natural theology and atheology such as arguments for the existence of God, problems of evil, and projection theories of religious belief formation; (ii) the phenomenology and epistemic significance of religious experience; and (iii) Reformed Epistemology (Plantinga, Alston, Wolterstorff) and the question of which concepts of epistemic justification are appropriate for religious beliefs.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%). Coursework only to be resubmitted if a pass not achieved on the first submission.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr P Tomassi

Pre-requisites

PH 2003, PH 2004, PH 2505 and PH 2506.

Overview

What is truth? This question represents one of the most fundamental philosophical problems. Indeed, according to traditional conceptions of Philosophy itself as the pursuit of truth, the question of the nature of truth may be the most fundamental of all philosophical questions. Further, while a number of 'robus' accounts of truth have been proposed, many philosophers, historical and contemporary, have sought to resist the claim that consists in any real property and have variously agreed that truth is either redundant or admits of a merely minimalist analysis. While this course will explore the question of the nature of truth quite generally, a particular focus of the course will be whether the positions of truth-sceptical philosophers can be refuted.

Structure

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

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr P Tomassi

Pre-requisites

Available only to Senior Honours students in Philosophy.

Overview

A dissertation on a topic in Philosophy.

Assessment

Dissertation (100%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Variable

Pre-requisites

Only available to Senior Honours students in Philosophy.

Notes

This course will normally run in the first half-session as PH 4004.

Overview

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

Structure

3 one-hour lectures and 8 ninety-minute seminars over twelve weeks.

Assessment

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

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Variable

Pre-requisites

Available only to Senior Honours Philosophy students.

Notes

This course will normally run in the second half-session as PH 4506.

Overview

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

Structure

3 one-hour lectures and 8 one-and-a-half-hour seminars over twelve weeks.

Assessment

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

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr P Tomassi

Pre-requisites

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

Overview

Through guided reading and student-led seminar discussion, this course explores a number of themes in the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. The precise content of the course will vary from year to year, but it will invariably address aspects of both his earlier and later work. Topics in logic and the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, epistemology, and the philosophy of value will be addressed. Students can be provided with a detailed list of topics to be considered from the course tutor.

Structure

3 one-hour lectures and 8 ninety-minutes seminars over 12 weeks.

Assessment

1 three-hour examination (70%) and course essay (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Professor G Graham

Pre-requisites

None.

Notes

This course will run in either the first or the second half-session. More precise information will be available from the course co-ordinator or Undergraduate Programme Co-ordinator prior to commencement of classes. This course is available only to Senior Honours students in Philosophy.

Overview

The course deals with questions such as the objectivity of ethics, the interpretation of such objectivity in terms of rationality and the conflict between consequentialist and non-consequentialist approaches to ethics.

Structure

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

Assessment

1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (2000 words) (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr P Tomassi

Pre-requisites

This course is available only to Senior Honours students in Philosophy.

Notes

This course will run in either the first or second half-session. More precise information will be available from the course co-ordinator or Undergraduate Course Co-ordinator prior to commencement of classes.

Overview

The first part of the course will study two or more of the following topics in Mataphysics: the nature of causality; problems of space and time; the nature of truth; appearance and reality; the possibility of a "view from nowhere". The second part will consider the nature, extent and possibility of knowledge, and related problems of scepticism and relativism.

Structure

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

Assessment

1 two-hour written examination (70%) and 1 essay (30%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr J Reid

Pre-requisites

Notes

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

Overview

Naming and Necessity is unquestionably one of the most important philosophical works of the past fifty years - arguably the most important - with profound implications for a wide range of fields, including the philosophy of language, metaphyiscs, and the philosophy of mind. Kripke's book will serve as the centrepiece of the course, but we will also look at other related material, including background work (eg Frege and Russell), concurrent sympathetic work (eg Putnam), and subsequent criticism (eg Lewis). Topics to be examined include: the causal theory of reference, and Kripke's arguments against descriptivism; the basics, at least, of modal logic and possible worlds semantics; the metaphysics of possible worlds; essentialism, both for individuals and for natural kinds; Kripke's argument against psychophysical identity.

Structure

3 one-hour lectures and 8 ninety-minute seminars over 12 weeks.

Assessment

1 three-hour examination (70%) and course essay (30%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Professor G Graham

Pre-requisites

Available only to Senior Honours students in Philosophy (or with the permission of the Head of School).

Overview

This course will explore the normative character of development discourse, rival definitions of development, problems of Eurocentrism, as well as the ethics of aid and inernational trade. The ethical basis of environmental concern will be examined, including our attitudes toward nature, future generations and other countries. The examination of development and environmental ethics will be informed by a critical look at the role of technology, the idea of appropriate technology and in particular some of the issues raised by information and gene technology. It would primarily be for Philosophy students and would presuppose some familiarity with moral/political philosophy. Students doing IR or other subjects are welcome to do this course even if they have not done moral philosophy before, but should expect the first few weeks to be faily challenging.

Structure

6 one-hour lectures and 12 two-hour seminars over twelve weeks.

Assessment

1 three-hour examination (70%) and continuous assessment: long essay (20%), seminar contribution (10%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr N Shackel

Pre-requisites

Notes

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

Overview

What ought we to believe? The Truth? Whatever is rational to believe, even if it is not the truth? Or is, perhaps, the sceptic right to say that we are never well enough situated epistemically for there to anything that we *ought* to believe? Is evidence the only possible or proper determinant of what ought to be believed? Suppose that there were significant practical benefits in believing falsly or irrationally. Ought we yet to believe truly or rationally, or can the practical considerations outweigh the truth conducive considerations? Finally, are there intrinsically *epsitemic* duties and virtues, or are there just standard duties whose fulfilment requires rational belief as a necessary means. In this course we will explore these questions and others in the process of considering whether and to what extent there is an instrinsic obligation to believe rationally and whether and to what extent irrational belief is intrinsically blameworthy.

Structure

3 one-hour lectures and 8 ninety-minute seminars over 12 weeks.

Assessment

1 three-hour examination (70%) and course essay (30%).