Component

MA Public Opinion and Political Behaviour
BA Philosophy with Business Management options

Final Year, Component 04

CS307-6-AU and/or option(s) from list
AR323-6-AU
Art and Ideas III
(15 CREDITS)

This third art and ideas module deepens your existing thematic and historiographical knowledge building on Art and Ideas II. In this module, we will familiarise ourselves with some of the most influential and insightful theoretical approaches to art in the 20th and 21st Century.

BE947-6-FY
Democracy in Action
(30 CREDITS)
CS202-6-SP
The Politics, Ethics and Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence
(15 CREDITS)
CS300-6-SP
Community Engagement: Group Projects
(15 CREDITS)

This module offers final year students a unique opportunity to work together in an interdisciplinary team on a real-world project for a local partner organisation. It enables you to use the knowledge and skills you’ve acquired during your degree to address a real-world challenge, while sharing and developing your creative, organisational and practical abilities. By doing so, this module will prepare you for entering the graduate labour market or going on to post-graduate study. This module has been designed to enable students to integrate their subject knowledge with an understanding of sustainable development, acquiring the skills and competencies essential for addressing the urgent sustainability challenges of the 21st century.

CS301-6-AU
Dangerous Ideas: Essays as Social Criticism
(15 CREDITS)

Is Montaigne right to wonder whether Westerners are worse off morally than tribes who practice cannibalism? What kind of writing does George Orwell champion? What did Marx and Engels achieve with ‘The Communist Manifesto’? Examine the ‘dangerous ideas’ presented in a range of subversive essays and manifestos. Study how they challenge and satirise existing ideas and social arrangements. Experiment with writing, thus broadening the approach of your own essays.

CS301-6-FY
Dangerous Ideas: Essays and Manifestos as Social Criticism Capstone
(30 CREDITS)

Is Montaigne right to wonder whether Westerners are worse off morally than tribes who practice cannibalism? What kind of writing does George Orwell champion? What did Marx and Engels achieve with ‘The Communist Manifesto’? Examine the ‘dangerous ideas’ presented in a range of subversive essays and manifestos. Study how they challenge and satirise existing ideas and social arrangements. Experiment with writing, thus broadening the approach of your own essays.

CS301-6-SP
Dangerous Ideas: Manifestos as Social Criticism
(15 CREDITS)

Is Montaigne right to wonder whether Westerners are worse off morally than tribes who practice cannibalism? What kind of writing does George Orwell champion? What did Marx and Engels achieve with ‘The Communist Manifesto’? Examine the ‘dangerous ideas’ presented in a range of subversive essays and manifestos. Study how they challenge and satirise existing ideas and social arrangements. Experiment with writing, thus broadening the approach of your own essays.

CS307-6-AU
Beyond the BA: Preparing for Life as a Graduate
(0 CREDITS)
CS315-6-SP
Global Challenges in Interdisciplinary Perspective: Water Conflicts, Water Cultures
(15 CREDITS)

Access to water is one of the most urgent global challenges facing us today. Vital for health and well-being, as well as integral to indigenous cultures and industrial processes, water is a threatened commons and contested commodity. In this module, we will explore global and local case studies that highlight challenges of scarcity, contamination, privatization, and climate change, and the cultural importance of bodies of water for diverse communities. We will examine water-related problems, such as economic and urban development, grassroots activism, political conflict, community relations, heritage and public health. This module has been designed to enable students to integrate their subject knowledge with an understanding of sustainable development, acquiring the skills and competencies essential for addressing the urgent sustainability challenges of the 21st century.

PY413-6-AU
Contemporary Political Philosophy
(15 CREDITS)

What is politics (is it about justice or power)? How does political philosophy relate to real politics? What are competing approaches in contemporary philosophy? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches?

PY418-6-SP
Philosophy of Mind
(15 CREDITS)

What is the mind? In this module, we consider different ways of understanding the mind, mental states, mental processes, and mental abilities. We will begin with a survey of different positions that have been taken on the so-called mind-body problem, considering various forms of dualism, behaviourism, mind-body identity theory, functionalism, anomalous monism and eliminative materialism. We will consider accounts of the role of the mind in (a) judgment and (b) action. We will use philosophical resources to examine some classic disturbances of the mind such as hallucinations and delusions. We will consider the phenomenon of mind-reading (which is not confined to magic shows and carnivals!), and conclude with a consideration of the laws distinctive interest in the mental – whether in considering a person’s intent to commit a crime, the presence or absence of mental disorder, or what is known in law as mental capacity.

PY426-6-SP
Philosophy Dissertation
(15 CREDITS)

Develop your research and written skills through writing a dissertation on a philosophical topic studied in either your second year or the autumn term of your final year.

PY427-6-AU
Topics in the Philosophy of Religion
(15 CREDITS)

This module examines the relationships between faith and reason, religion and philosophy. We shall approach these topics, historically, by considering how they were discussed by some key figures in nineteenth-century European philosophy.

PY432-6-AU
Nietzsche
(15 CREDITS)

Devote yourself to a close study of Nietzsche`s 1887 On the Genealogy of Morality. You explore many of the most significant themes in Nietzsche`s work, including his account master and slave moralities, ressentiment, guilt, and nihilism.

PY440-6-AU
Philosophy and Mental Health: The Psychiatric Present and its Crises
(15 CREDITS)
PY453-6-SP
Feminism
(15 CREDITS)

How and why are women oppressed? What is a “woman”, and should we even use the term? This module will look at some of the main strands in modern feminist theory, and explore the different ways in which they understand the nature, role and objectives of feminism. Along the way, we will discuss the intersection between gender and other axes of oppression, such as race and class.

PY500-6-SP
Kant's Revolution in Philosophy
(15 CREDITS)

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason initiates a new 'critical' method in philosophy which has been highly influential in both continental and analytic philosophy. His critical method establishes a new way of thinking about the relation in which we stand to the world, and the role played by knowledge and judgement within that world.

At Essex we pride ourselves on being a welcoming and inclusive student community. We offer a wide range of support to individuals and groups of student members who may have specific requirements, interests or responsibilities.

The University makes every effort to ensure that this information on its programme specification is accurate and up-to-date. Exceptionally it can be necessary to make changes, for example to courses, facilities or fees. Examples of such reasons might include, but are not limited to: strikes, other industrial action, staff illness, severe weather, fire, civil commotion, riot, invasion, terrorist attack or threat of terrorist attack (whether declared or not), natural disaster, restrictions imposed by government or public authorities, epidemic or pandemic disease, failure of public utilities or transport systems or the withdrawal/reduction of funding. Changes to courses may for example consist of variations to the content and method of delivery of programmes, courses and other services, to discontinue programmes, courses and other services and to merge or combine programmes or courses. The University will endeavour to keep such changes to a minimum, and will also keep students informed appropriately by updating our programme specifications. The University would inform and engage with you if your course was to be discontinued, and would provide you with options, where appropriate, in line with our Compensation and Refund Policy.

The full Procedures, Rules and Regulations of the University governing how it operates are set out in the Charter, Statutes and Ordinances and in the University Regulations, Policy and Procedures.