Covers areas of moral and political philosophy, addressing questions such as whether moral facts are like scientific or mathematical facts; how we should resolve moral disagreements; theories concerning how we are to act; what the nature of political authority is; and what the justifications are for having a government.

This course introduces the students to the history of philosophy, and the philosophical topics that have been discussed in the past, to give a sound grounding in the contemporary issues. Philosophers such as Locke, Leibniz, Descartes, Aristotle and Plato have all been covered on this module in previous years.

This module introduces students to contemporary epistemology and metaphysics. The epistemology portion covers such topics as what knowledge is; how we are justified in believing things; and how inductive knowledge works. The metaphysics portion covers such topics as the existence of God; the existence of abstract things such as properties; whether we have free will or not; and the nature of consciousness.

Ths module gives students an introduction to logic. It will teach you how to carry out natural deduction in both propositional and predicate logic; create truth tables; and includes some practical applications of logic.

This module equips students with the research and essay writing skills for studying philosophy at the undergraduate level. Students receive lectures and tutorials on those skills. In the first semester tutorials focus on putting those skills into practice with a range of selected philosophical topics, whilst in the second semester students select a philosophical topic of their own to produce a single assessed essay on.

This module introduces some of the main themes and issues in 20th century and contemporary analytic metaethics.

This module introduces central issues in contemporary philosophy of mind, focusing on the problem of whether our mental experience, especially its subjective character, can be incorporated into the naturalistic, scientific picture of the world.

After presenting a general historical background which stresses the new philosophical problems generated by the rise of modern natural science in the context of traditional conceptions of substance, the module covers the five parts of Spinoza’s Ethics.

Continuing from Philosophical Texts and Methods in the first year, this module consists of weekly seminars with a member of staff for in-depth discussion of one selected text. No use of secondary material is envisaged, to encourage close engagement with the selected texts.

This will be an exploration of fundamental philosophical issues raised by the practice of science. It will cover issues in scientific methodology, scientific knowledge, the language of science, the relation between scientific theories and reality, the rationality of science and progress and the relation between science and society.

This module will examine contemporary political philosophy.

This module builds on the skills students learnt in Logic A&B at first year. Topics include the nature of logical consequence; questions concerning which logical system is the correct system; modal reasoning; and how we should interpret conditional statements.

As with Independent Study I, students select a philosophical topic of their own for independent research. Throughout they receive lectures on essay writing skills; starting research projects and how to carry out a research project.

The focus of the course will be on some of the most original and influential views and arguments in 20th Century Metaphysics. The topics covered are: personal identity; free will; realism and nominalism; and persistence over time.

This module concentrates on the metaphysical issues in personal identity and whether or not we have free will.

The questions we will discuss in this module include whether God created the universe; proofs for the existence of God; the compatibility of divine foreknowledge with human freedom; and whether there is a conflict between science and religion.

The module focuses on the nature of delusions, and examines the interplay between philosophical theories of the mind and data from psychology and psychiatry on the following thematic areas: human rationality, the nature of beliefs and self-knowledge.

This module explores the way in which Schopenhauer developed the transcendental idealism of Kant into a comprehensive metaphysics.

This module will cover some recent and contemporary debates between various forms of realism and anti-realism, such as those issues raised by Michael Dummett, Crispin Wright and Kipke.

This module will focus on one approach to normative ethics: virtue ethics. The module will introduce students to criticisms of other major forms of normative theory, specifically deontology and utilitarianism.

This course introduces students to the increasing number of dilemmas in bioethics that cross national boundaries and transcend domestic regulation.

This module allows you to conduct independent research into and write on a particular philosophical issue of your choice, with assistance from a project supervisor with expertise in your chosen topic.

This module covers issues in the Philosophy and Ethics of sex, including some of: liberal versus ‘traditional’ understandings of the function of sex; the harm principle; consent and competence to give it; what laws the state should/may impose relating to sex; the permissibility of contraception, homosexuality, pornography and prostitution.  The module employs the topic of sex as a route into fundamental issues in ethics and philosophy concerning liberalism, the law, the nature of ethics and related issues.