Philosophy 2K: Knowledge, Meaning and Inference

What is it to know something? Are there limits to knowledge, due to the limits of our own physical or psychological make-up? Can we know things they are in themselves, or are we limited to knowing how things appear to us? Does all knowledge depend on the senses, or can some things be known a priori, that is, by pure thought? This course centres around a close study of one the definitive books on these subjects of the past 100 years, Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy. As well as providing an incisive and famously readable account of these issues, it introduces the student to ways of conceptualising the issues characteristic of philosophy in the Anglo-American world since it was written. It provides an excellent background to the more contemporary works studied at Honours. In addition, the course provides an introduction to Logic, which is essential to a systematic understanding of the structure of knowledge, and of the way in which questions of language and meaning enter into philosophy. In the third component of the course, concepts and methods from both the Theory of Knowledge and from Logic are used in examining a cultural phenomenon with an unparalleled influence on modern life – science. What is the methodology of scientific inference? Can science give us knowledge of things that are beyond our powers of observation? Does science deserve its reputation of being fully objective and rational?

Entry into Honours

Entry into honours, either single or joint with another subject, is guaranteed to students who:

• • have completed at least one Level 1 Philosophy course with grade D or better at the first sitting, and have completed both Level 2 Philosophy course with at least a B and a C at the first sitting, and have answered one question on logic in the Philosophy 2K examination.

Entry may be granted to students not meeting these requirements; it is decided on a case-by-case basis.

The Philosophy Honours programme is a two-year programme of studies, comprising the Junior Honours and Senior Honours years, and is part of our four-year MA (Honours) degree. Junior and Senior Honours have separate curricula, and the final exam for each course takes place in term 3 of the same session ('split finals'). Each course last one term and 20 credits. Single Honours students take six per year (120 credits), three per term; Joint Honours students take three per year (60 credits), distributed as convenient. Each module is assessed by an essay (30%) and final exam (70%). Fortnightly tutorials in groups of no larger than six are held for Junior Honours modules; Senior Honours modules have larger group seminars. The dissertation is a fourth-year module that is compulsory for single honours students and for joint honours students not doing a dissertation in their other subject.