Undergraduate Philosophy 2025-2026

We examine questions such as: Is eating animals immoral? Is being a good or bad person a matter of luck? If so, are we justified in punishing bad people? Should anyone be able to set limits on what you can do with your own  body, even if it's ‘for your own good’? Should everyone be allowed to state their mind, even if their views are harmful or offensive? Is censorship ever justifiable? Do you have a moral obligation to help those worse-off? Are you unknowingly biased against underprivileged groups?

What makes an argument a good argument? What are the correct rules for reasoning? How should we revise our beliefs in the light of new evidence? What should we think about paradoxes?

This course provides an introduction to logic and tools for successfully evaluating arguments. Some of the topics covered include validity, soundness, consistency, entailment, provability, belief revision and paradoxes. The language of propositional logic and key ideas in Bayesian epistemology are introduced. The course develops the ability to symbolise English sentences into formal languages and to construct truth tables, truth trees and natural deduction proofs. Logical concepts are applied to everyday thinking as well as to philosophical puzzles and paradoxes.

What does it mean to live a good life? How do we determine what is good or bad, right or wrong? Are some ways of living better or worse for us? In this course we will look at some central philosophical approaches to answering these questions. Traditions we may engage with include virtue ethics, Chinese ethics, deontology, consequentialism, and feminist ethics. Along the way, we will read the original work of some of the most important scholars in the history of moral philosophy. Students will be encouraged to think deeply, and to explore their own views about what it means to live a (morally) good life.

How “real” is reality? How does the mind relate to the world? This course introduces two approaches to answering these questions: rationalism and empiricism. By reading Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, we learn about Descartes’ rationalist approach to knowledge, reality, mind-body dualism, and God’s necessary existence. Through David Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding see how Hume grounds knowledge in experience. We read Hume on impressions and ideas, induction, causality, miracles and critically compare and examine Descartes’ and Hume’s arguments by drawing on readers and critics.

Why are some researchers arguing that future robots should be considered as persons? What will increased AI mean for the future of work? What might increased AI do to global politics and democracy? Can we trust AI to make important healthcare decisions? What about bias in systems? And who or what is to be held responsible if things go wrong? This course explores some of the most pressing philosophical problems of the modern age. No computer science or philosophy background is required.

This team-taught course will explore relevant questions of social importance using the tool of philosophical thinking. Students will engage with philosophical arguments and concepts central to various domains, including technology, health care, digital knowledge, migration, and sport.

What, if anything, makes states legitimate? What kind of freedom should political authorities respect and promote? Is democracy really the best form of government? How, if at all, should states respond to inequality? In this course, we will explore central questions in Western political philosophy. Topics we may cover include state legitimacy, racial injustice, liberty, democracy, distributive justice, and equality. Readings will include a balance of historical and contemporary texts.

This course provides students with an introduction to central issues in metaphysics and epistemology. The emphasis is on introducing some of the central issues in these areas; issues that have shaped the contemporary debate.  In addition to introducing a number of central issues in metaphysics and epistemology, this course also teaches and further develops a number of essential skills including extracting and evaluating philosophical arguments, critical writing, and the application of logical concepts to philosophical problems. 

This course allows medical students the opportunity to explore debates in Medical Ethics which inform contemporary ethical practice in Medicine and Healthcare. Students will be introduced to philosophical concepts and methods which will help them reflect on difficult cases drawn from real-life treatment scenarios and policy decisions.

Over the last decades philosophy of biology has matured into a dynamic field of philosophical inquiry. Apart from reflecting on specific findings and controversies within the life sciences, such inquiry can shed light on debates in general philosophy of science and philosophy of mind.

This course examines both classical topics and more recent developments. It will address questions such as: Do genes really carry information or is this just a metaphor? What does it mean to say that the function of the heart is to pump blood? Are biological species natural kinds? Do animals have beliefs and desires?

Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781) is one of the most important works of Western philosophy. Kant focuses on what we can and cannot know, transforming concepts of freedom, God, self, and nature along the way. In resolving the impasse between rationalism and empiricism, Kant set out a new approach to epistemology and metaphysics called transcendental idealism. This fundamental turning-point in philosophy also generated some enduring problems. This course focuses on reading and understanding the Critique alongside selected critical works. Working closely with the text, we will understand Kant's arguments, their significance, and the problems that they generated.

This course explores a diverse range of questions concerning the political and legal status of animals. Questions we might engage with include: What kind of normative framework is most appropriate for understanding issues of justice for animals? Should animals have citizenship rights? Is painless killing of animals wrongful? What are our obligations to companion animals? Should humans try to mitigate the harm wild animals do to one another? When there is a genuine tension between human and animal interests, how should we proceed?

This course examines issues lying at the intersection of epistemology and social, political and feminist philosophy. We will investigate how differences in the power of certain social groups affect the ability to create and share knowledge, and vice-versa. Specifically, the course focuses on epistemic injustice and its intersections with race, sex/gender, disability, and healthcare provision.

In almost any area of contemporary philosophy that you study, you will eventually encounter talk of possible worlds. Physicalism, naturalism in ethics, counterfactuals, necessity and possibility, propositions, dispositions, determinism, mental and linguistic content, to name a few, are often stated or analysed in terms of possible worlds. What should we make of all this possible worlds talk? Should we take it as the literal truth? Is there really a possible world in which I am a concert violist? If so, then what sorts of things are possible worlds? Are they concrete spacetimes like the actual world? Or are they linguistic descriptions, abstract states of affairs, sets of n-tuples? Or perhaps all this possible worlds talk is a useful fiction that philosophers participate in and, strictly speaking, there are no such things. Or perhaps appealing to possible words is not really the best way of capturing our thought and talk about possibility. In this course, we will consider these questions.

This course offers an overview of the main schools of ancient Chinese philosophy and an exploration of some of its central themes. One of our aims will be to demonstrate the relevance of an understanding of ancient Chinese philosophy to contemporary Western philosophy, and we will also reflect on the philosophical issues that arise in understanding different cultures and forms of thinking.

The dissertation is on a topic in philosophy. The specific topic will be chosen by the student with the approval of the supervisor. The choice of topics is restricted insofar as it must fall within the teaching competence of the supervisor.

Another dissertation or Project course must not be undertaken alongside the Philosophy Dissertation

Over the last decades philosophy of biology has matured into a dynamic field of philosophical inquiry. Apart from reflecting on specific findings and controversies within the life sciences, such inquiry can shed light on debates in general philosophy of science and philosophy of mind. This course examines both classical topics and more recent developments. It will address questions such as: Do genes really carry information or is this just a metaphor? What does it mean to say that the function of the heart is to pump blood? Are biological species natural kinds? Do animals have beliefs and desires?

Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781) is one of the most important works of Western philosophy. Kant focuses on what we can and cannot know, transforming concepts of freedom, God, self, and nature along the way. In resolving the impasse between rationalism and empiricism, Kant set out a new approach to epistemology and metaphysics called transcendental idealism. This fundamental turning-point in philosophy also generated some enduring problems. This course focuses on reading and understanding the Critique alongside selected critical works. Working closely with the text, we will understand Kant's arguments, their significance, and the problems that they generated.

This course explores a diverse range of questions concerning the political and legal status of animals. Questions we might engage with include: What kind of normative framework is most appropriate for understanding issues of justice for animals? Should animals have citizenship rights? Is painless killing of animals wrongful? What are our obligations to companion animals? Should humans try to mitigate the harm wild animals do to one another? When there is a genuine tension between human and animal interests, how should we proceed?

This course examines issues lying at the intersection of epistemology and social, political and feminist philosophy. We will investigate how differences in the power of certain social groups affect the ability to create and share knowledge, and vice-versa. Specifically, the course focuses on epistemic injustice and its intersections with race, sex/gender, disability, and healthcare provision.

In almost any area of contemporary philosophy that you study, you will eventually encounter talk of possible worlds. Physicalism, naturalism in ethics, counterfactuals, necessity and possibility, propositions, dispositions, determinism, mental and linguistic content, to name a few, are often stated or analysed in terms of possible worlds. What should we make of all this possible worlds talk? Should we take it as the literal truth? Is there really a possible world in which I am a concert violist? If so, then what sorts of things are possible worlds? Are they concrete spacetimes like the actual world? Or are they linguistic descriptions, abstract states of affairs, sets of n-tuples? Or perhaps all this possible worlds talk is a useful fiction that philosophers participate in and, strictly speaking, there are no such things. Or perhaps appealing to possible words is not really the best way of capturing our thought and talk about possibility. In this course, we will consider these questions.

This course offers an overview of the main schools of ancient Chinese philosophy and an exploration of some of its central themes. One of our aims will be to demonstrate the relevance of an understanding of ancient Chinese philosophy to contemporary Western philosophy, and we will also reflect on the philosophical issues that arise in understanding different cultures and forms of thinking.