Module Directory

This module offers an opportunity for close study and discussion of key texts in contemporary philosophy, with particular attention to ongoing research and debates around these texts.

The specific focus will vary year-on-year and will typically be either one book-length text divided in chapters or sections, or a series of article-length texts organised around a theme in one or more area(s) of contemporary philosophy.

The aims of this module are:

• To develop a good and critical understanding of a philosophical text or set of texts through attentive reading.


• To gain a better understanding of what it means to attentively read a philosophical text.


• To gain an insight into ways in which contents of a text can be related to its form, within philosophy and beyond.

Skills for your Professional Life (Transferable Skills)

By the end of this module, students will be expected to be able to:

• Define the task in which they are engaged and exclude what is irrelevant.


• Seek and organise the most relevant discussions and sources of information.


• Process a large volume of diverse and sometimes conflicting arguments.


• Compare and evaluate different arguments and assess the limitations of their own position or procedure.


• Write and present verbally a succinct and precise account of positions, arguments, and their presuppositions and implications.


• Be sensitive to the positions of others and communicate their own views in ways that are accessible to them.


• Think 'laterally' and creatively - see interesting connections and possibilities and present these clearly rather than as vague hunches.


• Maintain intellectual flexibility and revise their own position if shown wrong.


• Think critically and constructively.

The focus of this module will vary year-on-year.

Examples of books we may read include Elizabeth Anscombe's Intention, Peter Strawson's Individuals, David Lewis's Convention, Saul Kripke's Naming and Necessity, Paul Grice's Studies in the Ways of Words and Miranda Fricker's Epistemic Injustice.

Examples of thematically related groups of shorter texts include writings by Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein and Kripke on the meaning of names and descriptions; writings by Bernard Williams, Harry Frankfurt, John L. Austin, Paul Grice and Miranda Fricker on lying, misleading and other non-cooperative linguistic and epistemic behaviour.

This module will be delivered via:

• Lectures.
• Seminars.