Aims and Objectives

Aims and objectives common to Postgraduate MA

The Department endorses the University’s Mission, ‘to maintain the highest standards of excellence as a research-led institution, whose staff work at the frontiers of academic enquiry and educate students in a research environment’.

The Department aims to:

a) equip students with an understanding of a range of philosophers and philosophical problems, while encouraging as deep a critical engagement with those philosophers and problems as is feasible in the time available

b) promote respect for the norms of – clarity; careful analysis; critical reflection; rational argument; sympathetic interpretation and understanding; and impartial pursuit of truth

c) promote independence of thought and a critical and analytical approach, not only to theories and concepts, but to the assumptions on which they are based

d) equip students with the core skills involved in – careful reading, comprehension and compression of textual material; clear thinking; sound argumentation; and the clear and well-organised expression of ideas

e) provide high quality teaching which is informed and invigorated by the research activities of members of staff

f) facilitate an awareness of the application of philosophical thought to other academic disciplines or to matters of public interest, encouraging students to apply philosophical skills more widely where appropriate

g) encourage students to plan for themselves the contents of their degree programmes in philosophy, and to plan and organise their own work, within the constraints and advice provided by the Department

h) recruit highly qualified students, while at the same time providing access for those with non-standard qualifications who can benefit successfully from the postgraduate programme.

i) enable students who have previous knowledge of Philosophy to deepen their understanding of the subject, and to test out their aptitude for further research.

By the end of a Postgraduate MA (or PG Diploma), students will:

  • Understand a range of fundamental terms and concepts essential to the discipline of philosophical investigation

  • Be able, not only to assess critically both their own thinking and the work of other philosophers, but also to make out their own positive case for their views

  • Have an awareness of selected current philosophical debates, and be able to engage with central philosophical issues

  • Have acquired a high level of understanding of a number of areas of philosophical work, and an informed grasp of the strengths and weaknesses of different proposals made within those areas

  • Be able to write effectively, and will have developed a range of intellectual virtues and core skills (see Aims b, c, d above)

  • Have displayed their core skills in assessed work, as well as their knowledge and understanding of the subject area

  • Have had the opportunity to take courses introducing them to some major figures from the history of philosophical thought, and which encourage careful reading, sympathetic exegesis, and critical engagement with their works

Students who complete an MA will in addition have:

  • Pursued a particular topic in greater depth through the writing of a dissertation.

Many students will in addition have:

  • Been provided with training in research and research methods, and equipped to begin writing their PhD dissertations (through the PhD Proposal module).

  • Been placed in their strongest possible position to compete for PhD funding during the course of the year.

  • Been encouraged to develop a substantive body of written work relevant to the subject of their proposed PhD.