Philosophy is the study of life's biggest questions and central topics: from ethics and politics to knowledge, truth, and the nature of reality. It's also one of the most practical degrees you can take.
At the University of Lincoln, you'll learn how to analyse complex problems, construct persuasive arguments, and communicate ideas with clarity - all of which are skills that employers consistently rank among the most valuable.
This course is designed not just to explore ideas, but to prepare you for a wide range of careers. Whether you're considering law, business, public policy, media, or further study, you'll graduate with the ability to think independently and stand out.
Develop career-ready skills
Learn how to evaluate evidence, challenge assumptions, reason clearly, and present strong arguments
Explore real-world philosophical questions
Ethics, religion, science, art, the environment, the mind, and artificial intelligence
Learn in small, supportive groups
More opportunities for discussion, feedback, and direct access to academics
Build a flexible career path
With skills valued in areas such as law, consulting, policy, media, education, and further study
Study with expert academics
engage in current philosophical research and real-world debates
Complete assessments that reflect real skills
Including essays, presentations, policies, and podcasts
Gain a strong foundation for postgraduate study
Including philosophy, law conversion courses, and specialist career routes
Study in a student-focused environment
Designed to help you build confidence, progress academically, and feel known by your lecturers
Benefit from a campus built around student life
With libraries, study spaces, accommodation, and support within easy reach
Study in a well-respected programme
With Philosophy in Lincoln consistently being ranked in the top 20 overall in the UK over the last four years (out of 42 ranking institutions), according to the Guardian University Guide.
This course use a variety of assessment methods including essays, podcasts, student-led presentations, and in-class exams.
This course is designed to help you think better, argue better, and make better decisions.
You will:
By the time you graduate, you’ll be able to:
These are transferable skills that apply across almost every career path
12th for Philosophy
9th for Teaching Quality in Philosophy
9th for Student Experience in Philosophy
6th Best University for Philosophy
This is a survey module introducing students to the main ideas of some of the key philosophical thinkers of both the pre-modern and modern periods that have helped to shape Western culture and philosophy (e.g., Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Wittgenstein). As well as knowledge of what the great philosophers have said about the big questions of metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind, this module aims to provide students with a map with which to navigate later developments in Western philosophy.
In this module, you will learn essential skills that bridge academic study and professional practice in today's interconnected world. Through hands-on workshops and engaging activities, you'll develop crucial abilities in research, critical thinking, and effective communication that will serve you throughout your university journey and beyond. You'll discover how to make the most of university resources, both online and on campus, while building confidence in academic writing, presentation skills, and collaborative work. The module helps you navigate the transition to university-level study while preparing you for the evolving demands of the workplace. Whether you're analysing academic sources, crafting professional communications, or working on team projects, you'll gain practical experience that will help set you up for success in both your degree program and future career.
This module is designed to introduce students to the three areas of discussion in contemporary moral philosophy. Metaethics is concerned with the nature of morality itself and questions such as ‘Are there moral facts?’, ‘If there are moral facts, what is their origin?’. Normative ethics is the attempt to provide a general theory that tells us how to live and enables us to determine what is morally right and wrong. Applied ethics involves the application of ethical principles to specific moral issues (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, animal rights) and the evaluation of the answers arrived at through this application. This module aims to introduce students to all three of these branches of ethics.
This module introduces some of the basic ideas and concepts of philosophical logic and the technical vocabulary that is required for understanding contemporary philosophical writing. Students are introduced to logical concepts such as validity, soundness, consistency, possibility, necessity, contingency, inductive and deductive forms of argument, necessary and sufficient conditions, the rudiments of formalisation, and a range of logical fallacies. The emphasis will be on using logic to construct and evaluate arguments.
This module aims to introduce students to some of the central questions in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind. For example: What is the self? What, if anything, makes you the same person you were when you were five years old? To what extent is the world of everyday experience mind-dependent? Is free will compatible with determinism – the view that every event is causally necessitated by a prior event? What is the mind, and how does it relate to the body? Are we just highly complicated physical objects, or is the mind an immaterial or spiritual substance?
This module introduces students to selected seminal works in the history of philosophy. Students will be required to develop a detailed knowledge of two texts and of relevant aspects of their historical background. Sample texts (which are subject to change in line with staff teaching availability) include Plato’s Meno, Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, Berkeley’s Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Kant’s Prolegomena To Any Future Metaphysics.
This module is designed to provide students with a broad introduction to some of the key issues in the theory of knowledge (epistemology). The main focus of the module is the nature of knowledge – what is it, and what, if anything, can really be known? This leads on to questions about how knowledge relates to truth, belief, and justification, and to discussion of different kinds of knowledge (e.g., perceptual, religious, moral).
The purpose of this module is to enable students to examine claims about the existence of God and the nature of religious faith. Among the major thinkers whose contributions to the philosophy of religion we will consider are Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein. Issues students can consider are whether religious statements are meaningful, whether the existence of evil counts strongly, or even conclusively, against the existence of God, whether religious beliefs are merely a projection of human desires, and whether the idea of life having a meaning stands and falls with the belief in God.
This module engages students in a process of identifying and addressing inequities and inequalities within university life. Students will explore current debates in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), sustainability and decolonisation, and propose actionable solutions to create a more just, sustainable and equitable higher education environment(s). In doing so they will gain a range of degree-relevant and employment-focused skills.
This module prepares students for their independent study project (dissertation) in third year and develops their research skills and project management skills. Students will explore the requirements for an extended piece of independent research and receive instruction and support on how to develop a proposal for their own research project. Students will explore how to prepare for and ensure success in their research projects by identifying and developing their transferable skills, especially time management and self-direction, while also enhancing their breadth of knowledge, and critical search and evaluation abilities.
Humanities in Action: Enterprise Projects tasks students with directing their skills towards solving a real-world business, policy, or organizational problem. Set a contemporary challenge by a current organizational leader, students will independently manage a group project and draw on their distinct and specific skills to propose a feasible solution grounded in the humanities.
This module explores the history of authoritarian regimes, fascist movements, and dictatorships in the 20th century, providing students with a critical understanding of how these regimes emerged, functioned, and shaped global history. By examining case studies from Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa, students will gain insight into the political, social, and ideological dynamics that enabled authoritarian rule.
This module provides students with the opportunity to resurrect and understand the ordinary lives of people like themselves and their forebears from the sources available to us. The course picks up on both well-established and recent trends in historical research that have sought to give voice to ordinary people and promote from the historical records the lives of marginalised people such as homosexuals, women, children, the working classes, ethnic minorities alongside more familiar narratives of the great and the good.
This module introduces students to philosophical questions about the nature of art and beauty. For example: What is art? Can anything be a work of art? Can a pile of elephant dung be art? Is beauty objectively real or only ‘in the eye of the beholder’? Can aesthetic judgements be right or wrong? Is Beethoven better than Beyoncé? Is Shakespeare better than Eastenders? Or are aesthetic disputes like deciding between the merits of different flavours of ice cream?
Students can also consider questions that arise in relation to specific artforms: How is it possible to respond emotionally towards the plight of fictional characters that are known not to exist? Do rock/pop music and classical music require different aesthetic criteria for their appreciation and evaluation? Why do we take pleasure in the aesthetic representation of tragic events? Students will be guided through their reading of various classical and contemporary works on such issues, and encouraged to think for themselves about the problems addressed.
This module explores the nineteenth-century literature of the USA, chiefly focusing on fiction and poetry. Authors covered include Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Walt Whitman and Willa Cather, among others.
This module will give students an opportunity to engage in close philosophical study of texts by the most influential ancient philosophers. Texts will be studied in English translation. They will include works by Plato and Aristotle, as well as by less familiar philosophers of the ancient world (c. 500 BC-500 AD Greece and Rome). The focus of the module will be philosophical, not interpretive or historical: students will be expected assess the credibility of the positions and arguments advanced by Plato, Aristotle and others and to develop their own views in dialogue with these thinkers.
This module explores major thematic concerns across Greek and Latin literary traditions and/or a range of genres, including epic, tragedy, lyric, historiography, and philosophical writing. Rather than focusing on individual authors or texts in isolation, the module adopts a thematic and comparative approach, examining how ideas such as power, identity, gender, violence, exile, memory, love, and the human relationship with the divine are developed, contested, and reimagined across time and literary form.
This module gives students the opportunity to build and demonstrate problem-solving skills in the context of applied philosophy. Students will be introduced to the interdisciplinary methods of applied ethics and examine together a series of selected applied ethics case studies, drawn from a variety of different areas including health care, climate justice, AI, beginning and end of life. Students will then work on an individual project which they will present in poster form at the end of the module. The module will give students a thorough grounding in applied ethics and enable them to evidence the key employability skill of problem-solving in the context of applied philosophy.
This module provides an introduction to Indian philosophy and gives students the opportunity to study some of the classic texts of Indian philosophy in detail. While texts will be studied in English translation students can also gain a familiarity with the elements of classical Indian (principally Sanskrit) philosophical vocabulary. Topics will be drawn from both the astika (orthodox Hindu) schools such as Naya-Vaisheshika and Samkhya-Yoga and nastika schools such as Jainism and Buddhism, and will cover areas such as logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and linguistics. The focus of the module will be philosophical, not interpretive or historical. Students will be expected assess the credibility of the positions and arguments advanced by classical Indian thinkers and to develop their own views in dialogue with them.
This module provides an interdisciplinary introduction to Classical reception, the study of how Greek and Latin languages and literature as well as Greek and Roman art and architecture have been interpreted, reinterpreted, and represented in different historical and cultural contexts. Students will look at how later cultures made use of the classical past and how they themselves have changed and shaped the way in which the ancient world is understood both in academia and in popular culture.
Clio, the muse of History, had many and diverse children. This module examines both the birth and development of historiography in Ancient Greek Literature. Students will use a wide range of primary sources together with secondary sources and engage with diverse types of writing, ranging from military historians to ethnographers, biographers, geographers, and female historians.
Beginning with the Royal Historical Society’s “Race, Ethnicity and Equality Report” (published in 2018), which raises urgent questions on the diversity of staff, students and curricula at History departments in UK universities, the module analyses live debates on “Decolonising the Curriculum” in higher education. We critique how histories of Empire, colonialism and slavery have been taught in Anglo-American settings, and introduce postcolonial analysis on archives, as well as the “Global South” and “indigenous knowledge” that have often been marginalised in Eurocentric historiographies.
Turning towards the University as a key apparatus of power in the contemporary world, the module then reveals the complex legacies of slavery in the making of a number of UK and US institutions including Liverpool, Bristol, Oxford (#RhodesMustFall), SOAS, University of Virginia and others. Introducing the new field of “Critical University Studies” (CUS), students will learn about the emergence of universities in former colonies including India and South Africa, as well as the phenomenon of “transnational education” that entails the establishment, by prestigious European and American institutions, of satellite campuses around the world. The module then unpacks public understandings of colonial history via recent scholarship on nationalism, patriotism, museums and memories, and ends with a hopeful reflection on pedagogies that will be more inclusive and intersectional in terms of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. This module will be particularly suited to students who intend to develop careers in education.
The Early Modern period in philosophy was home to great thinkers such as George Berkeley, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Rene Descartes, David Hume, Gottfried Leibniz, John Locke, and Baruch Spinoza. It also hosted a number of key philosophical divisions, for example, between realism and idealism, rationalism and empiricism, and dualism and monism. In this module we will engage with a number of these writers and positions, exploring various topics within metaphysics and epistemology, and asking questions about ourselves, the world around us, and the relation between the two.
This module aims to provide an introduction to the basics of Greek for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can gain the ability to translate and interpret sentences and short passages in prose and verse up to intermediate difficulty. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.
This module aims to provide a continued introduction to the basics of Greek for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can refine their ability to translate and interpret sentences and short to medium-length passages in prose and verse up to advanced difficulty. This helps develop a foundation for sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.
Our emotions and our perceptions together make up the bulk of our everyday lived experience. They are amongst the things most familiar to us. Yet, it is possible for them to escape our attention which can instead be on the things given to us through them: we often focus on what is seen, rather than the seeing itself. In this module we will try to shift this focus, investigating emotion and perception themselves. We will investigate questions such as the following. Is an emotion a mere feeling? Can emotions be rational? Are emotions perceptions? Can we perceive things like dogs and cats? What might illusions or hallucinations tell us about perception?
This module explores fundamental questions about humanity's relationship with the natural world through the lens of philosophical inquiry. Drawing on both classical and contemporary thinkers, we examine key debates in environmental ethics, from the intrinsic value of nature to questions of ecological justice and sustainability. Students will critically assess different philosophical approaches to pressing environmental challenges, including climate change and biodiversity loss, while developing sophisticated arguments about environmental responsibility and stewardship. The module combines careful philosophical analysis with practical application, making it relevant for students interested in environmental issues, public policy, or fundamental questions about human-nature relationships. Through thoughtful discussion and analysis, students will be able to develop valuable critical thinking skills while engaging with one of the most significant intellectual challenges of our time.
The purpose of this module is to enable students to examine claims made about what, if anything, makes life meaningful by some of the major figures in the history of philosophy (e.g., Plato, Aristotle, St Augustine, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Marx). The module begins by considering the Question of Meaning itself. Is it intelligible? What is it to seek meaning in life? Is God necessary for life as a whole to have meaning? If so, and if God doesn’t exist, what is an appropriate response to life’s “absurdity” or lack of meaning? Is suicide an ethically defensible response? Or can individual lives have meaning even if life as a whole has none? Could a life be meaningful even if it were entirely occupied with selfish or vicious activities? Could, for example, the life of a torturer be meaningful? Or must our lives have an ethical resonance to be meaningful? We will also consider nihilist views that the conditions necessary for meaning do not obtain, and metaethical debates about the nature of value in general.
The aim of this module is to give students a thorough understanding of two intimately related philosophical traditions that came to prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries: existentialism and phenomenology. Each attempts to address the nature and meaning of human existence from the perspective of individual, first-person experience, focusing in particular on fundamental questions of being, meaning, death, nihilism, freedom, responsibility, value, human relations, and religious faith.
The module will examine selected existential themes through the writings of thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, De Beauvoir, and Camus. Since existentialism is as much a artistic phenomenon as a philosophical one, students will also be given the opportunity to explore existentialist ideas in the works of various literary figures, such as Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, and Milan Kundera.
King Alfred, Viking invasions, the Norman Conquest, Domesday Book, wars of succession spilling over the Channel into Normandy: some of the most emblematic and controversial moments and monuments of English history date to the period students will encounter in this module. But did this period really see the birth of England? How was the modest kingdom of Wessex of the late ninth century transformed in the following two centuries into a state that some historians believe to have been unusually precocious, innovative and efficient in its governing structures? What role did other parties and peoples from the British Isles and further afield play in these developments? And after the extraordinary events of 1066 – which saw England conquered by the Normans – how do we explain a subsequent political crisis so devastating that the survival of the kingdom itself was in doubt by the middle of the twelfth century?
These questions lie at the heart of this module, which will ask students to examine primary sources and engage in longstanding historiographical debates on a weekly basis. Special attention will be paid to showing students how historians use source materials of varying kinds from the Middle Ages to develop, nuance or challenge rival interpretations of this formative period in the early English, Anglo-Scandinavian, and Anglo-Norman worlds; in the process, students will increase their knowledge, broaden their skills, and begin to think about the exciting challenges historians face when trying to understand the many complex and contested aspects of England’s medieval past.
This module will show students that the origins of the country we now know as England merit close and detailed examination. For while historians argue about whether England existed in a recognisable form in 871 when King Alfred became king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, that England not only existed by the middle of the twelfth century but was one of the most powerful kingdoms in Europe, its territorial influence spreading far beyond the Channel, is a matter of consensus. How and when did an idea of England take shape and what were the formative historical processes that made that idea reality? An exploration of these ideas underpins this module, which will introduce students to a range of source materials, both written and archaeological, ranging from coins to chronicles, and castles to collections of documents known as cartularies.
Accordingly, this module will ask students to consider important questions about the origins of government, the beginnings of legal and administrative structures that in some sense persist to this day, and the distribution of the economic resources that made kingship and feudal society possible. By extension, this module will offer students a chance to acquaint themselves with the skills and techniques that allow historians to handle the complex and wide-ranging sources we rely upon to study the period in question, in the process demystifying the study of the Middle Ages and providing a solid basis for further study of medieval societies.
This module investigates portraiture as a cultural practice and artistic genre from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, examining how modernity has shaped representations of identity. It explores how portraits, across painting, photography, film and digital media, have been used to negotiate questions of likeness, individuality and social status, and to respond to shifting ideas of selfhood in relation to politics, psychology and consumer culture.
In this module, you will examine how empire functioned not just as a geopolitical map, but as varied systems of racialised and gendered control, enforced through institutions ranging from the classroom and the prison cell to the railway lines that carved up landscapes. By investigating the flows of settlers, migrants, and intermediaries, including the porters behind famous explorers and the labourers sustaining global trade, you will reappraise the myth of ‘blank spaces’ and uncover the complex human networks that linked metropoles to colonies and colonies to one another. Through diverse case studies extending from the Caribbean and East Africa to East and Southeast Asia, you will interrogate the changing dynamics of power, from the ‘benign neglect’ of the nineteenth century to the ends of empire in the twentieth century, violent or otherwise. The module encourages you to look beyond traditional archives to recover the voices of the silenced, analysing sources such as memoirs, newspapers, and oral histories to reconstruct ‘colonial lives’. Whether examining the legacy of imperial heroes or the messy transition to independence, you will develop the digital and research skills to produce work that brings these hidden histories to light, critically reflecting on how the echoes of empire continue to shape our world today.
The University has a strong commitment to providing academic programmes with high vocational relevance, which is maintained through working links with local, national and international organisations and, in particular, through student work placements.
The Placement Year aims to give students a continuous experience of full-time work within an organisation. It should be a three-way co-operative activity between employer, student and University from which all parties benefit. It is more than simply obtaining work during a gap in study – work placements should enable students to experience at first hand the daily workings of an organisation while setting that experience in the broader context of their studies.
The Placement Year constitutes a work placement during an academic year, funded by full-time paid employment* taking place between Level 2 and Level 3. The minimum duration of placement is 39 weeks.
Students wishing to undertake the work placement year must successfully complete the Level 2 of their programme.
All students on the Placement Year as part of their full-time undergraduate study will remain enrolled with the University during the period of placement and receive support. Students originally enrolled on 3-year programmes wishing to transfer to the 4-year programme must do so before the start of their placement, should gain the consent of their funders, where appropriate, and advise the University of their intention before the September enrolment.
This module explores ancient inscriptions as evidence for understanding society and culture by considering them as both texts as well as meaningful objects with archaeological contexts and material characteristics. Students will gain skills in finding and using epigraphic evidence to address thematic and topical questions about the ancient world. From stamps on ceramics to monumental stone inscriptions, the module will review the variety of evidence across a wide geographical area and chronological range. Students will become proficient in using relevant online databases and gain knowledge of the methods used for recording and studying inscriptions.
This module aims to provide an introduction to the basics of Latin for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can gain the ability to translate and interpret sentences and short passages in prose and verse with confidence. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.
This module aims to provide a continued introduction to the basics of Latin for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can refine their ability to translate and interpret sentences and short to medium-length passages in prose and verse up to advanced difficulty. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.
This module encourages students to connect making with how we understand and interpret historical objects. Through physically engaging with materials and craft processes, students learn experientially and gain insights into how material properties and making processes provide evidence for the past.
This module examines key British medieval texts, primarily in Middle English, from the High and Late Middle Ages (that is, from approximately the twelfth century to fifteenth century). It explores the breadth of literary activity in the period through a variety of genres--such as debate poetry, ethnographies, beast fables, romance, dream visions, satire, devotional and mystical writings, and mystery plays--and the evolution of a new form of English (the precursor of modern English), revealing that the medieval period is, in truth, a far cry from the misnomer by which it is often identified, the ‘dark ages’.
Metaphysics is often described as the study of the most fundamental nature of reality. It asks not only what sort of basic entities exist, but also what existence itself is and whether there might be things in the world that do not exist. These are the kinds of questions we will investigate in this module. Examples topics that we might consider include time, space, laws of nature, causation, change, objects, properties, and possibility.
The purpose of this module is to develop students understanding of some of the major issues in contemporary philosophy of mind and artificial intelligence. What kind of entity is the mind? How does it relate to the brain? Can we explain consciousness in physical terms? Could a machine ever be conscious? Are we headed for the Singularity—the point in the future at which machine intelligence overtakes human intelligence and goes on to design exponentially more intelligent machines? If so, how intelligent can machine intelligence get? Where does the mind stop and machinery start? For example, could a neural implant or even a smartphone form part of your mind? Are we ourselves thinking machines?
This module aims to introduce students to some of the central concepts, issues, theories, and debates in an area of moral philosophy called "normative ethics", thereby providing them with a framework for thinking seriously about moral matters, and to assist them in developing their philosophical and analytical skills. We will distinguish and evaluate the leading positions on these issues through a range of more specific topics in normative ethics.
Friedrich Nietzsche famously proclaimed that ‘the death of God’ would lead to a period of ‘nihilism’ – the view that life lacks meaning and value. But Nietzsche also saw the death of God as a liberating opportunity to move beyond traditional moral values, which he regarded as life-denying and stifling the potential of human beings.
A central aim of Nietzsche’s philosophy, therefore, is to make his readers question the value of traditional morality. Are kindness, compassion, altruism, charity, and equality really valuable? Do such values promote the cultivation of great cultures and great human beings? Or are they simply what is most useful to, what Nietzsche called, ‘the herd’? All the major themes of Nietzsche’s philosophy will be considered: art, tragedy, ‘genealogy,’ master and slave moralities, guilt, truth, self-creation, the Übermensch (or ‘superman’), the ‘higher’ individual, life-affirmation, and eternal recurrence.
A paradox arises when a collection of seemingly plausible claims lead to an absurd conclusion. For example, it seems true that if two people differ in height by just one millionth of a millimetre, then if one of them is tall, so is the other. However, this apparently logically entails that if anyone is tall, everyone is tall, which is absurd. (This is an example of the so called Sorites paradox.) Because paradoxes have this nature, they force us to reexamine things we take to be true. They are thus very valuable for improving our understanding of the world. In this module we will examine a number of paradoxes relating to different aspects of the world, such as time, movement, inquiry, and truth, hopefully gaining insights related to all these topics along the way.
This module provides an introduction to the major issues in contemporary philosophy of artificial intelligence. Students will explore the ethical challenges posed by current AI systems, including concerns about bias, transparency, and their impact on labor markets and society. They will examine speculative and existential questions about aligning AI with human values, preventing catastrophic misuse, and predicting AI's future role in human enhancement. The course also examines profound theoretical questions, such as the potential for moral agency and consciousness in AI, and the role of AI in personal relationships. This module equips students with the philosophical tools to critically analyze the most transformative technology of our time.
This modules addresses the phenomenon of love through the lens of some of the greatest works in the Western philosophical tradition. We shall mostly consider reciprocal romantic love and investigate, among other things, its seeming capacity, despite the possibility of loss that is intrinsic to love, to confer meaning and purpose upon life. The module explores the Freudian view that love is essentially a search for security and asks if this search can ever be stably fulfilled or if, like Sartre, we must conclude that it is impossible. Can love be defined, or does it belong to the realm of the ineffable? Is love inherently rational or irrational? Is it reducible to the reproductive or sexual drive? Do we, in essence, love the other for their own sake, or is love always self-serving? Is possessiveness really the enemy of successful love? Does all love stem from need or lack? What, if anything, is the difference between love and infatuation? And is, as Plato held, erotic attachment a form of enslavement? In addition, we will reflect upon a range of other topics, such as sexual objectification, polyamory or ethical non-monogamy, the ethics of causal sex, pornography, sexual desire, sadomasochism, and perversion.
This module introduces students to some of the central questions in the aesthetics of music. We will consider such issues as: What is music? What makes something music rather than just a sequence of sounds? What is it to understand a piece of music? What is the relation between music and emotion? How is it possible for a sequence of sounds to express emotion? What is the value of music? Does music have a special capacity to evoke a sense of the divine ? We will also consider questions pertaining to the critical evaluation of music. For example, do rock and classical music require different aesthetic criteria for their assessment and evaluation? There will be extensive use of diverse musical examples (everything from Bach to Cradle of Filth!) throughout the course.
This module focuses on a range of philosophical questions relating to mental illness and its treatment. What makes a person mentally healthy or mentally unhealthy? What makes a conscious state psychotic or delusional? How might mental disorders be distinguished from non-disordered mental states and conditions? Would certain putative mental illnesses be better characterized as “problems with living” rather than as specifically medical conditions? Should, as per the prevailing tendency in contemporary psychiatry, the subjective experience of individuals suffering from mental illnesses, such as depression and schizophrenia, be understood chiefly in terms of a chemical imbalance, and accordingly treated by an adjustment to brain chemistry? Or should, as per the traditional psychoanalytic view, such conditions be understood as irreducibly tied to internal symbolic content to be decoded by the analyst and patient? We will also consider questions raised by particular psychopathologies. Is psychopathy best understood as a mental illness, and if so, is it appropriate to hold psychopaths responsible for their attitudes and actions? Are certain forms of cognition currently seen as neurological/ neuro-developmental disorders (e.g., autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) better understood as representing diverse or statistically atypical ways in which humans are capable of seeing and interacting with the world? These and other questions will be explored through the lens of recent literature in the analytic tradition as well as seminal texts in the history of the philosophy of mental illness (e.g., Freud, Foucault, R.D. Laing).
This module explores a range of philosophical questions relating to the nature of science. How are scientific theories developed? Are scientific theories discovered through a ‘flash of genius’ or is something more methodical involved? How much of scientific discovery is down to careful observation? Do scientific theories tell us how the world really is? Do the entities scientific theories postulate – atoms, electromagnetic waves, and so on – really exist? Or are scientific theories merely useful models of reality? Is science independent of its social context? To what extent is scientific inquiry affected by gender, race or politics? Is there such a thing as truth that is not relative to a particular culture, social class or historical era? Drawing on accessible examples from a variety of scientific fields and by answering these and related questions, we shall try to reach an understanding of how science works.
Videogames are one of the most common ways of encountering history in the twenty-first century, but they offer a different way of engaging with history than films or other popular culture. Uniquely, videogames invite the player into the past and imbue them with incredible power to re-make the in-game future through their choices and the actions of the characters they control. This module will examine the relationship between history and videogames from a number of angles.
From immigration raids and street-level protests to contested foreign interventions and the global rise of far-right populism, the United States is currently living through a period of overlapping political crises. Federal immigration enforcement in cities like Minneapolis has provoked widespread public protest and legal challenges, raising urgent questions about state violence, civil liberties, and the reach of executive power. At the same time, instability in places such as Venezuela, and the role of the United States within it, has reignited debates about presidential authority in foreign policy and the legacy of American interventionism. These moments are not isolated events, but flashpoints in a much longer struggle over power, legitimacy, and democracy. This course helps you make sense of the crises of the present by placing them in historical context.
Rather than treating contemporary politics as unprecedented chaos, the module traces how modern presidential power was built, expanded, and repeatedly contested across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Focusing especially how we got to the Trump era, the course explores how populism, media ecosystems, racial politics, national security, and economic inequality have reshaped both the presidency and public expectations of leadership.
How can history and heritage be more inclusive of LGBTIQ+ lives and experiences? And how can queer perspectives help us to better understand the complexities of the past? This module responds to these questions by examining queer histories from the Ancient World to the present day. Taking a global view, the module investigates how concepts such as sex, sexuality, gender, the body, friendship and family have been organised in diverse ways across different times and places. In addition to considering how particular sexual and gender identities have emerged, the module also engages with ideas of queer history as a method for historical enquiry: one that is sceptical about binary analyses and linear narratives of progress.
The module will provide an introduction to the practical techniques of reading medieval documents, including the use of standard abbreviation forms in documents, the use of standard phrasing in administrative documents, and the development of this practice in large administrations (including royal and ecclesiastical chanceries). It will also introduce students to standard practice in document description of literary manuscripts as well as documentary sources and to the development of both literary and administrative hands in this period.
Students studying Renaissance Literature have the opportunity to look in detail at a range of texts from the late Elizabethan period to the mid-1630s, including work by Shakespeare, John Donne, Ben Jonson and Mary Wroth. They also have the chance to explore the historical and cultural contexts in which these texts were produced, and the effects that they had on the politics and culture of the British Isles in the period. Lectures aim to examine post-Reformation England and late humanism, patronage, gender relations, early modern literary theory, education and philosophy.
This module explores the history of sport in the modern world from the eighteenth century to the present. Sport both shapes and is shaped by modern society and the global expansion of sports across the world and professionalization have led to certain sports becoming the economic powerhouses of today. Sport has played an important role in nation-building in the last two hundred years, and sports teams continue to be significant markers of identity at local, regional and national levels. This module will also explore the impact of global phenomena, such as imperialism which spread certain sports to particular areas of the world. Topics will range from the local to the global, drawing on the colleagues' specialisms, including examples from modern Britain and Europe, the Caribbean, South Asia and East Asia. Sports discussed will include major global sports such as association football, cricket and rugby, but also hockey, racing, athletics and gymnastics.
Major events such as the Olympics will be considered alongside more focused examples to allow us to explore themes including class, gender, nation, identity and race, and their intersection.
This module provides an opportunity for History students to spend a term studying at one of the University’s partner institutions in North America or Europe. Students will be expected to cover their own transport, accommodation and living costs.
Teaching History deepens students' understanding of the practice of teaching history in the classroom. The module encourages students, especially but not exclusively those who may be considering a career in education (or related industries), to think more deeply about pedagogic theory and teaching practice. Students will be given the opportunity to gain some practical experience in instructing their peers and online audiences. There will be a strong focus on reflecting on prior learning experiences and the module will begin by providing students with an overview of the history of history teaching. History teaching will be examined at primary and secondary level, and in other educational contexts.
This module examines Arthurian narratives, myths, and traditions within a variety of contexts and media, and traces a variety of themes associated with Arthur and his court, including history and national identity; violence; kingship and rule; loyalty and betrayal; and love, sex, and gender roles.
Students will be expected to assess the importance of a myth that spans more than a millennium and address how medieval texts made meaning within their specific socio-cultural situations, as well as how later periods make meaning through their deployment of the medieval in new contexts.
Language enables us to communicate about ourselves and the world around us. However, it is not clear how language achieves this nor is it clear what influence language has on these activities. Therefore, in this module we will examine language itself. We will try to clarify its nature and how it works.
It appears that everything we do or think is in time. We live temporal lives. However, it is not entirely clear quite what the nature of time is, nor how it bears on our lives. Therefore, in this module we will investigate time itself. As will become clear in these investigations, a proper understanding of time, requires reflection on various aspects of ourselves and our environments.
This module explores the social, political and cultural realities shaped and framed by holy wars during the Middle Ages, with a primary focus on the Mediterranean (ca. 600-1200). We will explore and question the concept of holy wars from both Christian and Muslim perspectives, considering also the Byzantine responses to Jihad. Among the different locations under consideration in this module and linked to the framework of Crusades, we will focus on two zones of encounters and conflicts between Islam and Christianity: the Iberian Peninsula and the South of Italy. Beyond this, we will explore the eastern shores of the Mediterranean by focusing on the struggle for the dominion of the holy city of Jerusalem.
This module will help students develop a broad set of critical and analytical skills, while engaging with a variety of textual, visual and material sources. Students will gain an understanding of how the interplay of social, religious, political and cultural phenomena contributed to shaping a complex world – that of the crusades – which was more diverse and multilayered than some later historiographical representations might suggest.
This module introduces students to the origins and development of theatrical traditions in ancient Greece and Rome. The module explores key dramatic genres (tragedy, comedy, and satyr play) through close readings of representative works by authors such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plautus, and Terence. Students will examine drama as a literary, performative, and social practice, considering its religious, political, and cultural contexts. Particular attention is paid to themes such as myth, power, gender, citizenship, and the relationship between individual and community.
Ever wondered how philosophers use imaginary scenarios to tackle life's biggest questions? This module explores one of philosophy's most powerful tools: the thought experiment. From ancient Greek paradoxes to modern philosophical puzzles about consciousness, personal identity, and ethics, thought experiments have helped shape our understanding of fundamental questions about reality, knowledge, and human nature. Through a blend of analysis and creative practice, you'll learn how to dissect classic thought experiments and craft your own philosophical scenarios. You'll develop valuable critical thinking skills while exploring how philosophers use imagination to test ideas and challenge assumptions. Working collaboratively with peers, you'll move from analyzing famous thought experiments to developing your own original philosophical tools. Suitable for students interested in philosophical methodology, creative thinking, and the art of argument. This module offers a unique opportunity to develop both analytical and creative skills that are valuable not just in philosophy, but in any field requiring clear thinking and imaginative problem-solving. Assessment through a critical analysis essay and a portfolio of original thought experiments, allowing you to demonstrate both analytical and creative abilities.
This module builds on the first-year module ‘What is Knowledge?’ to provide students with a more in-depth exploration of epistemology. Students can examine a range of issues in contemporary epistemology, including: the nature of epistemic justification (the internalism/externalism debate, the debates between foundationalists and coherentists), the analysis of knowledge, the role of contextual considerations in dealing with scepticism, social epistemology, virtue epistemology, a priori knowledge, and epistemic naturalism.
This module will examine the ways in which Victorian Britons deviated from an apparently strict moral code. The context of an urbanising society with increasing wealth, mobility and advances in communications, alongside persistent poverty, class divisions and exploitation, created new opportunities for pornography, gay subcultures and recreational drug use, while existing vices such as drinking and prostitution evolved in new ways. Commentary on such practices, meanwhile, was shaped by new ideas about respectability and class and created an increasing division between virtue and vice. The module will also consider the problems of researching such topics, engaging students with the way illegality and marginalisation impacted the production of source material.
This module explores texts of the long Victorian era (1830-1914), a period of enormous social and cultural upheaval in which we find the roots of our modern selves. ‘Victorian worlds’ explores texts of a variety of forms (e.g. novel, short story, poetry, drama, and non-fiction prose) and genres (e.g. realism, Gothic, travel writing, life writing, fantasy) focused on different locations and social experiences, in recognition of a multiplicity of perspectives on ‘the Victorian world’. As we study these works in their historical contexts, we ask how these writers used literature to forge understandings of themselves in relation to their changing, and often challenging, environments.
This module introduces students to the lives and experiences of women in the ancient and medieval worlds. By engaging with a wide range of material, visual, and written evidence, including poetry and epic, portraiture, inscriptions, legal texts, civic and domestic architecture, and human burial, students will investigate both the real historical circumstances of women’s lives and the ways in which they were constructed, represented, and perceived.
This is an extended piece of philosophical work that gives students opportunity to demonstrate that they have acquired the skills of critical thinking and philosophical analysis.
This module introduces students to philosophical questions about the nature of art and beauty. For example: What is art? Can anything be a work of art? Can a pile of elephant dung be art? Is beauty objectively real or only ‘in the eye of the beholder’? Can aesthetic judgements be right or wrong? Is Beethoven better than Beyoncé? Is Shakespeare better than Eastenders? Or are aesthetic disputes like deciding between the merits of different flavours of ice cream?
Students can also consider questions that arise in relation to specific artforms: How is it possible to respond emotionally towards the plight of fictional characters that are known not to exist? Do rock/pop music and classical music require different aesthetic criteria for their appreciation and evaluation? Why do we take pleasure in the aesthetic representation of tragic events? Students will be guided through their reading of various classical and contemporary works on such issues, and encouraged to think for themselves about the problems addressed.
In the Twentieth Century new aviation technologies transformed understandings of war, peace, civilian and military. The module considers how ideas about air power developed, what informed this understanding of war, and what the consequences were. This is not a traditional military history concerned with narrative accounts of battles or armies, but one that asks questions about the relationship between military and civilian in society and culture in the twentieth century.
This module will give students an opportunity to engage in close philosophical study of texts by the most influential ancient philosophers. Texts will be studied in English translation. They will include works by Plato and Aristotle, as well as by less familiar philosophers of the ancient world (c. 500 BC-500 AD Greece and Rome). The focus of the module will be philosophical, not interpretive or historical: students will be expected assess the credibility of the positions and arguments advanced by Plato, Aristotle and others and to develop their own views in dialogue with these thinkers.
This module explores major thematic concerns across Greek and Latin literary traditions and/or a range of genres, including epic, tragedy, lyric, historiography, and philosophical writing. Rather than focusing on individual authors or texts in isolation, the module adopts a thematic and comparative approach, examining how ideas such as power, identity, gender, violence, exile, memory, love, and the human relationship with the divine are developed, contested, and reimagined across time and literary form.
This module gives students the opportunity to build and demonstrate problem-solving skills in the context of applied philosophy. Students will be introduced to the interdisciplinary methods of applied ethics and examine together a series of selected applied ethics case studies, drawn from a variety of different areas including health care, climate justice, AI, beginning and end of life. Students will then work on an individual project which they will present in poster form at the end of the module. The module will give students a thorough grounding in applied ethics and enable them to evidence the key employability skill of problem-solving in the context of applied philosophy.
This module examines both the birth and development of the concept of chivalry in the Middle Ages. Students can use a wide range of primary sources, as well as medieval and contemporary historiography, to explore how the role, image and function of medieval knights evolved over time.
This module provides an introduction to Indian philosophy and gives students the opportunity to study some of the classic texts of Indian philosophy in detail. While texts will be studied in English translation students will also gain a familiarity with the elements of classical Indian (principally Sanskrit) philosophical vocabulary. Topics will be drawn from both the astika (orthodox Hindu) schools such as Naya-Vaisheshika and Samkhya-Yoga and nastika schools such as Jainism and Buddhism, and will cover areas such as logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and linguistics.
This module provides an interdisciplinary introduction to Classical reception, the study of how Greek and Latin languages and literature as well as Greek and Roman art and architecture have been interpreted, reinterpreted, and represented in different historical and cultural contexts. Students will look at how later cultures made use of the classical past and how they themselves have changed and shaped the way in which the ancient world is understood both in academia and in popular culture.
Clio, the muse of History, had many and diverse children. This module examines both the birth and development of historiography in Ancient Greek Literature. Students will use a wide range of primary sources together with secondary sources and engage with diverse types of writing, ranging from military historians to ethnographers, biographers, geographers, and female historians.
The module will examine consumption in many of its forms in early modern Western Europe. Focusing on a number of areas, such as food, clothing, furnishings, houses and other goods increasingly accessible to people at all levels of society, the module will encourage students to consider how and why these were available.
This module will enable students to engage in the research and development of displays through the process of curating an exhibition for the museum or heritage sector. Students will select objects and structure this selection through an appropriate narrative. They will propose modes and examples of interpretation such as gallery text, audio or visual aids. The emphasis will be on developing knowledge and understanding of the role and responsibilities of the curator, and the project will enable students to evidence a focused and critically rigorous curatorial rationale.
The Early Modern period in philosophy was home to great thinkers such as George Berkeley, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Rene Descartes, David Hume, Gottfried Leibniz, John Locke, and Baruch Spinoza. It also hosted a number of key philosophical divisions, for example, between realism and idealism, rationalism and empiricism, and dualism and monism. In this module we will engage with a number of these writers and positions, exploring various topics within metaphysics and epistemology, and asking questions about ourselves, the world around us, and the relation between the two.
This module aims to provide an introduction to the basics of Greek for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can gain the ability to translate and interpret sentences and short passages in prose and verse up to intermediate difficulty. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.
This module aims to provide a continued introduction to the basics of Greek for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can refine their ability to translate and interpret sentences and short to medium-length passages in prose and verse up to advanced difficulty. This helps develop a foundation for sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.
This module aims to provide a continued introduction to the basics of Latin for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can refine their ability to translate and interpret sentences and short to medium-length passages in prose and verse up to advanced difficulty. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.
Our emotions and our perceptions together make up the bulk of our everyday lived experience. They are amongst the things most familiar to us. Yet, it is possible for them to escape our attention which can instead be on the things given to us through them: we often focus on what is seen, rather than the seeing itself. In this module we will try to shift this focus, investigating emotion and perception themselves. We will investigate questions such as the following. Is an emotion a mere feeling? Can emotions be rational? Are emotions perceptions? Can we perceive things like dogs and cats? What might illusions or hallucinations tell us about perception?
This module explores fundamental questions about humanity's relationship with the natural world through the lens of philosophical inquiry. Drawing on both classical and contemporary thinkers, we examine key debates in environmental ethics, from the intrinsic value of nature to questions of ecological justice and sustainability. Students will critically assess different philosophical approaches to pressing environmental challenges, including climate change and biodiversity loss, while developing sophisticated arguments about environmental responsibility and stewardship. The module combines careful philosophical analysis with practical application, making it relevant for students interested in environmental issues, public policy, or fundamental questions about human-nature relationships. Through thoughtful discussion and analysis, students will be able to develop valuable critical thinking skills while engaging with one of the most significant intellectual challenges of our time.
This module explores the history of science, sexuality and politics in the UK, Continental Europe, the US and Latin America from 1850 to 2000. It will give students an excellent grounding in modern and contemporary history that will complement further modules at level 3 that deal with sexuality, gender, race, science and medicine. It module examines the controversial rise of eugenics movements as a global phenomenon. The purpose of this module is to sustain a balanced and informed discussion about how race, reproduction, and the improvement of human heredity have acquired great political relevance in the modern period. It explores how scientists and different governments became preoccupied with hereditary theories, race, reproduction and sexual behaviour. It examines how societies across the Atlantic developed government policies around areas such as family planning, pronatalism, sterilisation, and race, which culminated in the implementation of euthanasia programmes in Nazi Germany. This module looks at eugenics programmes and politics in a transnational context, exploring how, for example, Nazi Germany’s sterilisation programmes were inspired by those already implemented in the US and how a number of Latin American countries adapted and transformed eugenics policies from Southern Europe and developed whitening policies.
This module explores the various ways in which the world was put on display in the nineteenth century, and with what aims and effects. The nineteenth century was a period during which museums, galleries, exhibitions, zoos and circuses all expanded in numbers and took on distinctive modern forms; it was also one where the ‘freak show’ became both popular but also frowned upon, while optical toys and attractions reformed ‘ways of seeing’.
The aim of this module is to give students a thorough understanding of two intimately related philosophical traditions that came to prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries: existentialism and phenomenology. Each attempts to address the nature and meaning of human existence from the perspective of individual, first-person experience, focusing in particular on fundamental questions of being, meaning, death, nihilism, freedom, responsibility, value, human relations, and religious faith. The module will examine selected existential themes through the writings of thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, De Beauvoir, and Camus. Since existentialism is as much a artistic phenomenon as a philosophical one, students will also be given the opportunity to explore existentialist ideas in the works of various literary figures, such as Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, and Milan Kundera.
This module guides students through one of the most significant scientific, political, and environmental stories of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in U.S. history. Students will engage with debates over the decision to use atomic weapons, the expansion of atmospheric testing, the growth of nuclear power, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the emergence of anti-nuclear activism within the United States.
The module will give students practical experience of the workplace. Students will normally define, plan and undertake a specific project. In addition students will gain experience of a range of tasks appropriate to sector-specific professional skills.
This module aims to provide an introduction to the basics of Latin for students with little to no prior experience of the language. Students can gain the ability to translate and interpret sentences and short passages in prose and verse with confidence. This can aid sensitive reading of primary sources from the Classical world in translation, as well as in the original at higher levels of study.
This module will analyse how the medicalised body has been represented, exploited, challenged and reclaimed in art and visual culture. The themes, ideas, priorities and objects of medicine – such as death, health, sexuality, taboo, trauma, bodily functions, and viscera – have taken centre stage in art and visual culture since the end of the nineteenth century. This module will explore the manifold ways in which artists have engaged with subjects including medical technologies, anatomies, contagion, disease, disability, psychiatry, blood, and pain, and we will do so in relation to constructions of gender, sexuality, race, class and disability. What significance do pathology, disease, illness narratives and patient experience take on in art and visual culture? To what effects have artists portrayed and perhaps questioned modern therapies and medical technologies, and their subjects, practices and theories? We will focus on a range of media including painting, prints, sculpture, performance art, conceptual art, film, and photography.
The 20th century saw unprecedented social, economic, political and cultural change in Britain. However, the equally dramatic shifts in how sexuality and masculinity were experienced and represented are often ignored. This module aims to enable students to study the history of 20th Century Britain while using the lens of gender and sexuality to understand how ordinary men lived their lives. Students will get the opportunity to work with a wide variety of primary sources such as: court records, newspapers, film, photographs, music, autobiographies, oral history and literature.
This module builds on the second-year module ‘Moral Philosophy’, focusing in particular on the central questions in metaethics: Do moral terms and judgements refer to moral properties, and if so, what are these properties like? Are any moral judgements true, and if so, are they true objectively, in virtue of moral properties that exist in the world? If there are objective moral truths, how can we know what they are? What implications do theories of moral reasoning and moral motivation have for the question of whether there are objective truths in ethics?
Metaphysics is often described as the study of the most fundamental nature of reality. It asks not only what sort of basic entities exist, but also what existence itself is and whether there might be things in the world that do not exist. These are the kinds of questions we will investigate in this module. Examples topics that we might consider include time, space, laws of nature, causation, change, objects, properties, and possibility.
The purpose of this module is to develop students understanding of some of the major issues in contemporary philosophy of mind and artificial intelligence. What kind of entity is the mind? How does it relate to the brain? Can we explain consciousness in physical terms? Could a machine ever be conscious? Are we headed for the Singularity—the point in the future at which machine intelligence overtakes human intelligence and goes on to design exponentially more intelligent machines? If so, how intelligent can machine intelligence get? Where does the mind stop and machinery start? For example, could a neural implant or even a smartphone form part of your mind? Are we ourselves thinking machines?
Friedrich Nietzsche famously proclaimed that ‘the death of God’ would lead to a period of ‘nihilism’ – the view that life lacks meaning and value. But Nietzsche also saw the death of God as a liberating opportunity to move beyond traditional moral values, which he regarded as life-denying and stifling the potential of human beings.
A central aim of Nietzsche’s philosophy, therefore, is to make his readers question the value of traditional morality. Are kindness, compassion, altruism, charity, and equality really valuable? Do such values promote the cultivation of great cultures and great human beings? Or are they simply what is most useful to, what Nietzsche called, ‘the herd’? All the major themes of Nietzsche’s philosophy will be considered: art, tragedy, ‘genealogy,’ master and slave moralities, guilt, truth, self-creation, the Übermensch (or ‘superman’), the ‘higher’ individual, life-affirmation, and eternal recurrence.
This module will investigate the history of imperial Britain through material culture. The objects of study will range from trophies looted in battle and a drum transported with enslaved Africans to Virginia, to African sculpture depicting Europeans. Historians increasingly recognise the fresh insights that objects offer to major themes in imperial history such as gender, race and class. This module responds to these new academic developments and will use objects and their biographies to study key phases and themes in the history of the British Empire. Tracing the long history of such objects can enable us to explore how objects change meanings as they move through various colonial and post-colonial contexts.
A paradox arises when a collection of seemingly plausible claims lead to an absurd conclusion. For example, it seems true that if two people differ in height by just one millionth of a millimetre, then if one of them is tall, so is the other. However, this apparently logically entails that if anyone is tall, everyone is tall, which is absurd. (This is an example of the so called Sorites paradox.) Because paradoxes have this nature, they force us to reexamine things we take to be true. They are thus very valuable for improving our understanding of the world. In this module we will examine a number of paradoxes relating to different aspects of the world, such as time, movement, inquiry, and truth, hopefully gaining insights related to all these topics along the way.
This module provides an introduction to the major issues in contemporary philosophy of artificial intelligence. Students will explore the ethical challenges posed by current AI systems, including concerns about bias, transparency, and their impact on labor markets and society. They will examine speculative and existential questions about aligning AI with human values, preventing catastrophic misuse, and predicting AI's future role in human enhancement. The course also examines profound theoretical questions, such as the potential for moral agency and consciousness in AI, and the role of AI in personal relationships. This module equips students with the philosophical tools to critically analyze the most transformative technology of our time.
This module explores a variety of questions relating to the concept of evil, and introduces students to a range of philosophical theories of the nature of evil. Students can explore the language and ontology of evil, the concepts of ‘radical’ and ‘banal’ evil, and examine how the existence of evil is accounted for by key figures in the history of philosophy. Typically, questions to be considered include: Is evil an irreducibly theological concept? Are notions of evil relative to individuals or cultures? Is evil a positively existing force or is it the absence of some quality, as darkness is the absence of light? Why are humans capable of wickedness?
This module explores a range of philosophical questions that arise in relation to love and sexual desire. Can love be defined, or does it belong to the realm of the ineffable? Is love inherently irrational? Is it reducible to the reproductive or sexual drive? Do we love the other for his/her own sake, or is love always self-serving? Are jealousy and possessiveness really the enemy of successful love? Does all love stem from need or lack? What, if anything, is the difference between love and infatuation? And is, as Plato held, love a form of enslavement?
In this module, students can address such questions through the lens of some of the greatest works in the Western philosophical tradition. We shall mostly consider reciprocal romantic love and investigate, among other things, its capacity to confer meaning and purpose upon life. We shall also explore the Freudian view that love involves regression to a situation in childhood in which we were perfectly safe, the search for love essentially being an attempt to recover this earlier form of security or wholeness. Can this need for wholeness ever be fully and stably fulfilled, or is, as Sartre argued, the project of love impossible? In addition, we shall reflect upon the nature of pornography, sadomasochism, and sexual perversion.
This module introduces students to some of the central questions in the aesthetics of music. We will consider such issues as: What is music? What makes something music rather than just a sequence of sounds? What is it to understand a piece of music? What is the relation between music and emotion? How is it possible for a sequence of sounds to express emotion? What is the value of music? Does music have a special capacity to evoke a sense of the divine ? We will also consider questions pertaining to the critical evaluation of music. For example, do rock and classical music require different aesthetic criteria for their assessment and evaluation? There will be extensive use of diverse musical examples (everything from Bach to Cradle of Filth!) throughout the course.
This module focuses on a range of philosophical questions relating to mental illness and its treatment. What makes a person mentally healthy or mentally unhealthy? What makes a conscious state psychotic or delusional? How might mental disorders be distinguished from non-disordered mental states and conditions? Would certain putative mental illnesses be better characterized as “problems with living” rather than as specifically medical conditions? Should, as per the prevailing tendency in contemporary psychiatry, the subjective experience of individuals suffering from mental illnesses, such as depression and schizophrenia, be understood chiefly in terms of a chemical imbalance, and accordingly treated by an adjustment to brain chemistry? Or should, as per the traditional psychoanalytic view, such conditions be understood as irreducibly tied to internal symbolic content to be decoded by the analyst and patient? We will also consider questions raised by particular psychopathologies. Is psychopathy best understood as a mental illness, and if so, is it appropriate to hold psychopaths responsible for their attitudes and actions? Are certain forms of cognition currently seen as neurological/ neuro-developmental disorders (e.g., autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) better understood as representing diverse or statistically atypical ways in which humans are capable of seeing and interacting with the world? These and other questions will be explored through the lens of recent literature in the analytic tradition as well as seminal texts in the history of the philosophy of mental illness (e.g., Freud, Foucault, R.D. Laing).
In this module you will learn how scientific knowledge evolves and what makes it distinctive. Through analysis of various scientific fields, you will explore how theories develop - from careful observation to conceptual breakthroughs - and examine whether scientific theories reveal fundamental truths about reality. The module investigates whether theoretical constructs like atoms and electromagnetic waves represent physical reality or serve as sophisticated models. You will critically evaluate how social and cultural contexts, including gender, politics, and historical circumstances, influence scientific inquiry, while examining the possibility of objective scientific truth.
How can history and heritage be more inclusive of LGBTIQ+ lives and experiences? And how can queer perspectives help us to better understand the complexities of the past? This module responds to these questions by examining queer histories from the Ancient World to the present day. Taking a global view, the module investigates how concepts such as sex, sexuality, gender, the body, friendship, and family have been organised in diverse ways across different times and places. In addition to considering how particular sexual and gender identities have emerged, the module also engages with ideas of queer history as a method for historical enquiry: one that is sceptical about binary analyses and linear narratives of progress.
The module will provide an introduction to the practical techniques of reading medieval documents, including the use of standard abbreviation forms in documents, the use of standard phrasing in administrative documents, and the development of this practice in large administrations (including royal and ecclesiastical chanceries). It will also introduce students to standard practice in document description of literary manuscrips as well as documentary sources and to the development of both literary and administrative hands in this period.
What did liberty mean in an age of kings and queens, and just how revolutionary were the political ideas of Tudor and Stuart Britain? This module introduces students to the key approaches and methodologies of the ‘history of ideas’ by exploring how scholars have studied radical political and religious thought in early modern Britain. Covering over 200 years of British history (1485–1714), students will examine the major events of the Tudor and Stuart reigns and engage with the writings of some of the period’s most influential thinkers, including Thomas More, John Milton, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke, alongside works of literature and visual culture. Ultimately, the module encourages students to reflect on how debates about liberty, authority, and resistance in Tudor and Stuart Britain continue to resonate far beyond the early modern period.
Teaching History deepens students' understanding of the practice of teaching history in the classroom. The module encourages students, especially but not exclusively those who may be considering a career in education (or related industries), to think more deeply about pedagogic theory and teaching practice in History. Students will be given the opportunity to gain some practical experience in instructing their peers and online audiences. There will be a strong focus on reflecting on prior learning experiences and the module will begin by providing students with an overview of the history of history teaching. History teaching will be examined at primary and secondary level, and in other educational contexts.
This module aims to examine how living in cities shaped the ways our lives and society have developed since the 19th Century. In the early 19th Century the population of Europe largely lived in rural settlements, yet 100 years later the populations of Western Europe's cities had exploded. Cities produced new forms of social organisation: for the first time drag queens and prostitutes rubbed shoulders with housewives, the rich discovered the poor on their very doorsteps and the unregulated spaces of cities became havens for counter-cultures, deviant sexualities and radical politics.
This module, ‘The Internet: A Social and Cultural History,’ examines how ordinary people experienced the internet in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Using a social and cultural history approach, we will move beyond histories of technological innovators to instead examine how a range of people embraced the internet within their daily lives, navigated multiplying ‘search’ platforms, made decisions around associated hardware like the iphone, and also grappled with new understandings of surveillance in the early 21st century. Central to the module will be a consideration of the methodologies historians can use to provide histories of internet spaces, activities, and events.
Language enables us to communicate about ourselves and the world around us. However, it is not clear how language achieves this nor is it clear what influence language has on these activities. Therefore, in this module we will examine language itself. We will try to clarify its nature and how it works.
It appears that everything we do or think is in time. We live temporal lives. However, it is not entirely clear quite what the nature of time is, nor how it bears on our lives. Therefore, in this module we will investigate time itself. As will become clear in these investigations, a proper understanding of time, requires reflection on various aspects of ourselves and our environments.
This module examines how African Americans tried to cast off the economic, political, cultural and social ties that bound them to second-class citizenship within the United States. We primarily focus on the Southern version of the black freedom struggle before casting our attention to a wider American political, social, and racial context — particularly as we challenge “the master narrative” of the civil rights movement that was once presented and represented as the singular history of the movement for African American freedom.
In charting the course of the civil rights movement in the twentieth century and beyond, we analyse the most venerated events and personalities of the era and aim to understand the movement on its own terms. We will explore its richness and its internal complexities, especially when reviewing the varying tactics and ideological differences of the movement’s leaders. The module asks us to question the presumed victories of the civil rights movement, to stretch our chronological understanding beyond traditional beginnings and endings, to acknowledge the complexity of American racial identity, and reveal what it tells us about the wider political and social dimensions of modern US history.
The module introduces students to the origins and development of theatrical traditions in ancient Greece and Rome. The module explores key dramatic genres (tragedy, comedy, and satyr play) through close readings of representative works by authors such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plautus, and Terence. Students will examine drama as a literary, performative, and social practice, considering its religious, political, and cultural contexts. Particular attention is paid to themes such as myth, power, gender, citizenship, and the relationship between individual and community.
Ever wondered how philosophers use imaginary scenarios to tackle life's biggest questions? This module explores one of philosophy's most powerful tools: the thought experiment. From ancient Greek paradoxes to modern philosophical puzzles about consciousness, personal identity, and ethics, thought experiments have helped shape our understanding of fundamental questions about reality, knowledge, and human nature. Through a blend of analysis and creative practice, you'll learn how to dissect classic thought experiments and craft your own philosophical scenarios. You'll develop valuable critical thinking skills while exploring how philosophers use imagination to test ideas and challenge assumptions. Working collaboratively with peers, you'll move from analyzing famous thought experiments to developing your own original philosophical tools. Suitable for students interested in philosophical methodology, creative thinking, and the art of argument. This module offers a unique opportunity to develop both analytical and creative skills that are valuable not just in philosophy, but in any field requiring clear thinking and imaginative problem-solving. Assessment through a critical analysis essay and a portfolio of original thought experiments, allowing you to demonstrate both analytical and creative abilities.
This module builds on the first-year module ‘What is Knowledge?’ to provide students with a more in-depth exploration of epistemology. Students can examine a range of issues in contemporary epistemology, including: the nature of epistemic justification (the internalism/externalism debate, the debates between foundationalists and coherentists), the analysis of knowledge, the role of contextual considerations in dealing with scepticism, social epistemology, virtue epistemology, a priori knowledge, and epistemic naturalism.
This module interrogates what it meant to be free and unfree in British Caribbean Colonial Societies. Drawing on a range of primary and secondary sources, it focuses on how African Caribbean people sought freedom during and after slavery. This exploration involves a review of freedom struggles that began in Africa, stretched across the ocean in the form of uprisings and refusals to comply on slave ships, and extended to the towns, plantations, and forests/mountains of the countries in which they were initially enslaved. This module also explores the experiences of indentured labourers (Asian and European), convicts and other coerced labourers. Social constraints found in colonial societies more generally will also be considered.
This module introduces students to the lives and experiences of women in the ancient and medieval worlds. By engaging with a wide range of material, visual, and written evidence, including poetry and epic, portraiture, inscriptions, legal texts, civic and domestic architecture, and human burial, students will investigate both the real historical circumstances of women’s lives and the ways in which they were constructed, represented, and perceived. The approach is thematic, covering changing concepts of sex and gender and examining the intersection between these categories and social status, age, occupations, and other identity markers.
† Some courses may offer optional modules. The availability of optional modules may vary from year to year and will be subject to minimum student numbers being achieved. This means that the availability of specific optional modules cannot be guaranteed. Optional module selection may also be affected by staff availability.
The Lincoln Philosophy Salon holds monthly talks in a local pub from world-leading professional philosophers. It’s a thriving organisation with a membership of around 600 people, which provides an informal opportunity for students to interact socially with staff and to discuss cutting-edge ideas with some of the most important living philosophers working today.
Lincoln is designed to support you throughout your time here.
You'll have access to:
What this means for you:
This course could be a great fit if you:
Meet Jordan Waite, a BA (Hons) Philosophy graduate, as he shares how his degree prepared him for a graduate role at Rolls-Royce.
At the heart of student life is our library which will provide you with access to more than 260,000 journals and 750,000 print and electronic books, as well as databases and specialist collections.
You can also take advantage of our range of modern study areas located across campus, including learning lounges which give you the opportunity to study alone or with your friends and coursemates
The thing that has stuck with me most from the course is that we are being taught to be philosophers rather than simply remembering what others have said.
Molly O’Hanrahan
BA (Hons) Philosophy
A Philosophy degree doesn’t limit you. It opens options.
Lincoln graduates develop skills suited to roles such as:
You could progress into:
Employers consistently seek people who can:
Philosophy graduates are known for exactly these strengths, making them competitive across industries.
104 to 112 UCAS Tariff points from a minimum of 2 A Levels or equivalent Level 3 qualifications.
If you are eligible for a contextual offer, a one grade or 8 UCAS Tariff point reduction to the standard entry requirements will be applied.
A Level: BBC
BTEC Extended Diploma: DMM
T Level: Merit
Access to Higher Education Diploma: 45 Level 3 credits with a minimum of 112 UCAS Tariff points.
International Baccalaureate: 29 points overall
GCSE's: Minimum of three at grade 4 or above, which must include English . Equivalent Level 2 qualifications may be considered.
The University accepts a wide range of qualifications as the basis for entry and do accept a combination of qualifications which may include A Levels, BTECs, Extended Project Qualification (EPQ).
We may also consider applicants with extensive and relevant work experience and will give special individual consideration to those who do not meet the standard entry qualifications.
Non UK Qualifications:
If you have studied outside of the UK, and are unsure whether your qualification meets the above requirements, please visit our country pages
https://www.lincoln.ac....irementsandyourcountry/ for information on equivalent qualifications.
EU and Overseas students will be required to demonstrate English language proficiency equivalent to IELTS 6.0 overall, with a minimum of 5.5 in each element. For information regarding other English language qualifications we accept, please visit the English Requirements page
https://www.lincoln.ac....shlanguagerequirements/
If you do not meet the above IELTS requirements, you may be able to take part in one of our Pre-sessional English and Academic Study Skills courses.
If you would like further information about entry requirements, or would like to discuss whether the qualifications you are currently studying are acceptable, please contact the Admissions team on 01522 886097, or email admissions@lincoln.ac.uk
University Study is a major investment, so it’s important to understand the costs and support available. A full breakdown of the fees associated with this programme can be found below. Eligible students may be able to access scholarships and bursaries to help with study costs.
The best way to find out what it is really like to live and learn at Lincoln is to visit us in person. We offer a range of opportunities across the year to help you to get a real feel for what it might be like to study here.
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We want you to have all the information you need to make an informed decision on where and what you want to study. In addition to the information provided on this course page, our What You Need to Know page offers explanations on key topics including programme validation/revalidation, additional costs, and contact hours.
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