The Honours Pathway

The aim of the honours pathway is to afford students who choose to focus on their academic capabilities the opportunity to hone them. Students will benefit from the opportunity to further develop their philosophical capabilities through deep exploration of issues in philosophy. This will give them the chance to practice creative rigor: students will be expected to produce their own original views, evaluate them and compare them to other existing views. They will work both within a research group, and individually.

The honours pathway follows the normal pathway, but with the addition of 12 credits which will be distributed over three courses.

Guided study or elective course

Each honours student will work on a topic chosen in consultation with their honours advisor(s). They will examine the existing literature on that topic and produce a ‘state of the art’ report on the area. This may lay the groundwork for their research project, which may be on a related topic.

OR

In consultation with their honours advisor, students may take a 3 credit course from any other major which will prepare them for philosophical work connected to that area.

Philosophy research skills

All philosophy honours students will work together, pursuing a joint research project through readings, joint seminars and in-depth discussions. Students will be guided to focus their question to one that is manageable, yet still address an important problem. They will be trained to identify work already done in that area, develop their notetaking skills, start a regular writing habit, and work closely within a team to increase the rigor of their ideas. At the end of the course, when the research project is complete, the students will each make a presentation in a conference held as part of the course.

Honours project

Each honours student will work on a topic chosen in consultation with their honours advisors. This topic must be different from the topic done in the guided reading course, though the topics may be related. The topic will be developed between the proposed honours advisors and the student and it may be one that connects closely to the area of public service the student is interested in. We would also welcome topics that connect closely to ideas in other majors. Students will be expected to work closely with their advisors to produce original, rigorous ideas based on a deep understanding of the area.