“By creating we think, by living we learn” Patrick Geddes
Why does freedom matter? What is 'truth' and is it possible to find it? How should we live? These are just some of the questions you will explore when you join us to study Philosophy. We will encourage you to examine your own beliefs, and to put them to the test as we explore the views of some of the most important thinkers in the history of Western thought: Plato, Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Nietzsche, to name but a few.
You will be taught by a dynamic team of lecturers with national and international reputations. Through their work, they play an active role in shaping some of the most exciting debates in contemporary philosophy. They will introduce you to these debates, as well as to innovative philosophical approaches to some of the most urgent political and ethical issues of our times. We are unique in Scotland in offering a specialisation in European Philosophy: you will be able to study with experts in this field who will show you how thinkers in the European tradition have led us to question our understanding of history, our moral values, and even our own identities.
Our approach is unusual because of the extent to which we encourage our students to make links between philosophy and other disciplines. We specialise in philosophy and art: we are the first in the UK to offer a degree in Art, Philosophy & Contemporary Practices, and all our students are encouraged to make links between philosophy and literature, the visual arts, film, or music. Specialist modules in these areas will help you to identify and explore the topics of special interest to you. When studying with us, you will also be able to examine the relationship between philosophy and science (including developments in computing and artificial intelligence), and relationships between philosophy, science and religion.
Teaching and learning reflect this interdisciplinary approach: in our lectures, we regularly draw on films and artworks, we discuss important scientific developments, and debate controversial ethical issues. You will also attend seminars with expert tutors, where you will work in small groups on important philosophical texts and problems, and develop your skills of analysis and argumentation. The fourth year dissertation is the high-point of your studies, where you will put forward and defend a thesis in an area of philosophy of your choice.
Philosophy is about learning how to think: by studying with us, you will learn how to think deeply, creatively, and in ways that make a difference.
You will study two modules, each with two parts.
Critical Thinking / Political Philosophy - PI11001 |
Semester 1 | Credits 20 |
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The Critical Thinking unit will introduce you to, and help you to develop, the distinctive and valuable skill of thinking philosophically. You will improve your skills of argument, analysis and critical evaluation. Political Philosophy examines key concepts that shape important political debates. By looking at the work of influential political philosophers, we address such questions as: do laws protect us, or take away our freedom? Why should we protect the right to freedom of speech? Should everyone have equal rights? |
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Plato / Descartes - PI12002 |
Semester 2 | Credits 20 |
This module engages with two of the greatest thinkers from the history of philosophy: Plato (427-348 BC) is arguably the founding father of Western philosophical thought. We shall investigate his still-influential answers to questions such as: What is reality and what is illusion, and how can we tell? What is knowledge? How should we live? Descartes (1596-1650 AD) kicked off a whole philosophical tradition when he asked: 'How do I know that my ordinary beliefs about the world are true?' We shall examine Descartes' strategy for answering this question, plus key issues that he confronts as a result, such as the relationship between mind and body, and the existence of God. |
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You will study two modules, each with two parts.
Aesthetics / Kant and his Critics - PI12001 |
Semester 1 | Credits 20 |
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Aesthetics: What is 'art'? Can it be defined? What, if anything, is special about encountering an art work? How do we evaluate a work of art? To help us answer these questions, we will draw on a range of different theories and thinkers, including Plato, Aristotle, Hume and Tolstoy. Kant and his Critics: Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) revolutionised philosophy in every area he wrote about. This course focuses on his revolutionary ideas about ethics. We go on to investigate critical reactions to Kant, including the exciting and challenging arguments developed by Nietzsche in the nineteenth century. |
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Hume / Recent European Philosophy - PI22002 |
Semester 2 | Credits 20 |
David Hume (1711-1777) is widely regarded as the greatest ever Scottish philosopher. In this unit, we investigate Hume's views on the mind, meaning, the sources and justification of knowledge, causation, free will, the self, God, and morality. Recent European Philosophy: Problems of the Self. What makes me 'me'? Given the multiplicity of physical, mental, perceptual, and spiritual states that I will go through in my life, what is it, really, that allows me to say 'I' through all these changes? This unit addresses questions about self and identity via the work of recent European philosophers such as Freud, Bergson, Sartre, and Foucault. |
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Study Abroad students may take level 3 modules, however, evidence of prior knowledge may be required in the form of transcripts. To find out more about this contact us.
| Spinoza and Free Will - PI32003 | Semester 2 | Credits 30 |
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| In this course we will discuss one of the most controversial works in the history of philosophy: Spinoza's Ethics. We will discover why Spinoza affirms freedom while rejecting the possibility of free will, and why he has been considered both the most interesting and the most dangerous philosopher in the history of European thought. | ||
| Applied Ethics - PI31005 | Semester 1 | Credits 30 |
| This course draws on the full resources of ethical theory to think hard and clearly about how we should live. The course will cover a range of challenging ethical issues, including euthanasia, capital punishment and punishment in general, war and terrorism, famine, animal rights, and human sexuality. | ||
| Question of Vision in Art and Philosophy - PI31004 | Semester 1 | Credits 30 |
| What is the relation of an art work to reality? Can careful attention to an art work increase our understanding - of ourselves or our world? How does the understanding we gain by looking differ from the understanding we gain via analysis and theoretical explanation? This course addresses these topics through a critical engagement with two important twentieth-century German philosophers, Heidegger and Gadamer. | ||
| Philosophy of Mind - PI32001 | Semester 1 | Credits 30 |
| How can we understand the experience and attitudes expressed in a scream? Can theory give a complete understanding? If not, what else is needed, and why does it elude theory? This is the kind of question we will be thinking about on this course, which introduces students to central themes in Contemporary Philosophy of Mind. | ||
| The Aesthetics of the Sublime - PI32009 | Semester 2 | Credits 30 |
Erupting volcanoes, boundless seas, towering mountain peaks, the raging storm of battle, the terrifying shudder of the earthquake: why do such 'sublime' events fascinate and move us? Why do we find it so hard to turn away from things which horrify us? This module explores philosophical accounts of the sublime from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Literary and visual art works are used to link the sublime to issues of identity, gender, race, the ethical, and the political. |
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| Logic and Paradox - PI31007 | Semester 1 | Credits 30 |
| By taking this course, students will appreciate the philosophical reasons for employing formal logic. Students will gain an understanding of elementary formal logic, as well as of problems concerning the expression of natural language and thought in formal languages. The module also explores the significance of developments beyond elementary formal logic. | ||
Study Abroad students may take level 4 modules, however, evidence of prior knowledge may be required in the form of transcripts. To find out more about this contact us.
| Deleuze - PI41001 | Semester 1 | Credits 30 |
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| This module introduces one of the most important and exciting thinkers of the twentieth century: Gilles Deleuze. It will examine his powerful and revolutionary work on difference and repetition, and its implications for notions of identity. Students will apply this work through a case study in a field of their choice, for example in literature, art, politics, philosophy or history. The case study will allow students to illuminate particular problems in their field, as well as to develop criticisms of Deleuze's position. | ||
| Thinking Film - PI42012 | Semester 2 | Credits 30 |
| This module explores the many ways in which philosophy and film can form a productive relationship. We begin by looking at recent 'high-concept' cinema as a tool for teaching philosophical topics such as time, personal identity, freedom, reality and appearance, God, or good and evil. The films chosen will be mostly contemporary ones such as The Matrix, Memento, Total Recall, AI, Crimes and Misdemeanours, or Gattaca. We go on to examine recent philosophical theories of film, and conclude by asking how film-art can make us think through its narrative, visual, and auditory structure: in other words, can film philosophise? | ||
| Philosophy of Science and Religion - PI41002 | Semester 1 | Credits 30 |
| This module examines the impact that the development of science has had on both religion and philosophy. We begin in the thirteenth century with the clash between the church and scientific views based on Aristotle, and go on to study the Copernican Revolution and the rise of Newtonian Physics. | ||
| Nietzsche and Foucault: the Bodily Self - PI41005 | Semester 1 | Credits 30 |
| Philosophers have often seen the body as a distraction, as something which needs to be mastered or even escaped for human beings to think clearly and rationally. This module examines the work of two influential recent thinkers, Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault, who make us look again at the body and its relation to, and importance for, our sense of 'self'. As we will see, Nietzsche and Foucault argue that the 'self' or 'soul' is an effect of bodily processes, and that the body itself is produced by a complex play of forces and relations. | ||
| In Search of Moral Reality - PI41011 | Semester 1 | Credits 30 |
| Isn't ethics all relative and subjective? How can we argue about ethics? Why should I be moral anyway? Human beings have always asked these questions. They have come up with all sorts of answers to them, some more plausible than others. This fourth-level course is a critical examination of some of the more interesting answers to these three questions. | ||
| Understanding, Dialogue and Interpretation - PI42003 | Semester 2 | Credits 30 |
| What is involved in the act of interpreting a text or an art work? How does interpretation differ from analysis and explanation? This module will approach these and related questions via a sustained enquiry into such modern hermeneutic thinkers as Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, Gadamer, Habermas and Iser. We will explore how the concept of 'interpretation' has itself been transformed and re-interpreted, with particular reference to the activity of understanding a text or culture. | ||
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