This course concerns the theory of knowledge – epistemology in both the analytic and psychological-social sense.

This course will examine the history of justified beliefs from the ancient Athenian context through the middle ages, the European Enlightenment, and up through the postmodern turn and “Post-Truth” in the 20th century. As we examine each historical epoch we will examine how and why beliefs were acquired, held, justified, and rejected. Then we will compare and contrast the different historical epochs vis-a-vis and attempt to make some authoritative claims about the nature of beliefs and truth.

Of particular interest will be the social dynamic within the theory of knowledge from the psychological and sociological perspectives. We will also examine how knowledge is shaped by social actors, campaigns, and institutions who bend or compromise basic epistemological rules in order to create outcomes some of which may be socially damaging.

In this course, students will examine the category of Art and how the concept was developed. Specific topics to be covered will include the history of the concept of art in the West and its relationship to the production of art, including economic production in a capitalist context. We will examine arguments about the category of Art as a concept dependent on a specific economic form (e.g. capitalism), reviewing the coincidences in the structures.

This course explores the philosophy of Hegel, with an emphasis on Hegel's key text, the Phenomenology of Spirit. The course begins with a discussion of Hegel's life and times and the political and philosophical context in which he lived, before introducing his overall philosophical vision or system. Students will be introduced to the core text (e.g. the Phenomenology), giving an account of its position in Hegel's philosophical system.

The course will introduce the students to the key concepts and ideas that have given rise to Radical Theology, offering a historical and contextual overview of the various streams in radical theological thought. The course will also address the potentials and possibilities Radical Theology offers to those who are interested in redefining faith and community life in the 21st century.

The course will introduce the student to the key concepts and ideas within the academic subject, “Philosophical Theology” broadly construed. The field of philosophical theology emerged in the wake of a dispute between the relationship between reason and faith relative to truth claims about the world and other transcendent phenomena. This course will unfold in the following three phases:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

This advanced graduate-level course in Philosophy addresses a unique topic on a rotating basis in order to keep the programme at the forefront of scholarly research. Every year the academic staff member will approve of a new topic to be covered. The bibliography will contain not less than 8 peer-reviewed articles or scholarly publications reflecting the current topic.

Current Topic:

Structuralism and phenomenology are the two great competing philosophical movements of the twentieth century starting with Saussure and Husserl. Both begin with different assumptions: one takes the givens of immediate experience; the other casts it aside in favor of the hidden structures of thought. One begins with thinking as consciousness; the other with thought as language. A few phenomenologists have tried to bridge the difference. Some like Sartre have stuck to their principles. One of the most problematic consequences of structuralism is how to explain the emergence of the subject. The most problematic consequence of phenomenology is how to explain the existence of other people.

By the end of this course, researchers will be expected to be able to understand the difference between these two movements and their continued influence on philosophy today. The old dualism between subject and object has morphed into one between thought and language. Can thought be the property of a subject? Or must thought be described as belonging to language itself? The whole problem of the individual and the collective is at stake. Even politics is involved. If we cannot bridge this gap, how can we explain collective action? And if there is no individual who thinks, what becomes of human agency? These are a few of the questions this course will address.

This advanced graduate-level course in Philosophy addresses a unique philosophical figure on a rotating basis in order to keep the programme at the forefront of scholarly research and to reflect the faculty’s research expertise. Every year the academic staff member in charge of the course will approve of a new philosopher to be examined. The bibliography will contain not less than 8 peer-reviewed articles or scholarly publications reflecting the current topic.

This is an advanced course in which students will engage with the ideas of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. His philosophy of immanence will be carefully analyzed such as his notion of the supposed power of the soul to control and to organize bodies. As explained, to make oneself a “body without organs,” in Deleuze’s terms, is to replace the faculty of judgment with an immanent method of comparing powers.

This course covers advanced philosophical paradigms, leading students through the key ideas and advanced texts associated with them, covering topics such as Critical Theory, Semiology and Semiotics, Hermeneutics, Psychoanalysis and Deconstruction, Automation, Artificial Intelligence, and Algorithmic Design.

For each paradigm, students will examine the theoretical presuppositions at work and consider several prominent exemplars of the approach. The focus throughout is on how these various critical approaches are applied to textual, cultural, and historical materials in contemporary scholarship - and how they may be combined with one another in mutually illuminating ways.

The genealogical method in philosophy, in the version studied in this course, was created by Nietzsche, developed by Foucault, and is implied in the works of Deleuze and Guattari. It consists of a history of ideas, not focused on original intent, but on the problems and questions that make ideas possible.

Key to this notion of genealogy is the idea of “episteme,” each era has a limit of what is thinkable. Certain elements from a previous era will carry over to the next, but with a different significance. By using the genealogical method, philosophers can detect these shifts in meaning, thereby creating a way to think beyond the present-day limits of thought to presage the emergence of a future set of problems and questions.

In short, it is a way of thinking beyond our times by reactivating the problems and questions of the past. Its critical force consists in the fact that concepts are not a matter of personal intent. It is not enough to argue about the significance of words and things in order to create a present-day consensus. Genealogy is about discovering the meaning of concepts we created out of nothing. Every concept has a history. Tracing the lineage of an idea offers us an alternative to the Anglo-American method of logical analysis. It is not a matter, for the genealogist, what is true. It is a matter of what can become true if we reactivate the concepts from the history of philosophy.

Required Texts: (Some materials will be provided via PDF, however others will not be for which the student is responsible for procuring)

Deleuze, Gilles. Nietzsche and Philosophy. Columbia University Press, 1983.

Deleuze, Gilles. Foucault. University of Minnesota Press, 1988

Foucault, Michel. Language, Counter-Memory, Practice. Cornell University Press, 1977.

Foucault, Michel. Confessions of the Flesh: The History of Sexuality, Volume 4. Knopf Doubleday, 2021.

Nietzsche, Fredrich. On the Genealogy of Morality and Other Writings. Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Deleuze, Gilles. Seminars, Foucault, October 1985 - June 1986

This course explores the unconscious act by examining theories of repetition put forth by psychoanalysts and philosophers over time. To understand the mechanisms at work, we first review Freud’s writings on the unconscious, as well as his theories of remembering, repeating, and working through unconscious material. We survey philosophers who came before him who arguably influenced his thinking, including Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.

Students then will examine theories of the unconscious and repetition in Lacan and Deleuze, and expound upon them via philosophers of the Ljubljana school. We discuss the act in theater and film and the ways in which unconscious dynamics are mirrored and re-enacted therein. We conclude by reviewing modern writings on the unconscious in the digital age, bringing psychoanalytic philosophy to the present day as we look at the ways in which psychoanalytic thinking may help us understand our current culture, as well as conversely how the digital age allows for a better understanding of psychoanalytic theory and practice.

Independent study can play a vital role in a student’s education. Independent study allows the student to explore a topic of interest under the close supervision of a faculty member who has agreed to direct the student’s work. The module may include directed readings, applied work, assisting the faculty member with a research project, carrying out an independent research project, or other activities deemed appropriate by the supervising faculty member and academic board. Regardless of the nature of the experience, the work must culminate in a formal paper.

The Philosophy Dissertation contains both a research planning phase, ‘The Research Plan’, and a research execution phase ‘The Dissertation’.

The Research Plan

The Research Plan for the Philosophy Dissertation prepares students to embark upon a substantial, sustained, unified piece of research at the MQF 7 level. The module is taught by the proposed dissertation supervisor as a form of preparation specific to the dissertation and the requirements of its subject matter.

This module is not a general introduction to research or research methodologies, but a practical preparation for students embarking upon the dissertation for the MA in Philosophy. Although these skills are highly transferable to other research domains, it remains the case that the purpose of the module is scoped to the needs of the specific dissertation for which it prepares the student.

This module marks the end of the taught portion of the degree and the transition to the research portion. It is expected that the topic of research, which is refined during the planning phase, will have arisen out of one of the taught modules’ essays.

The planning phase provides a highly structured plan for embarking upon independent research in the subsequent dissertation and more broadly at the MQF 7 level.

In order to provide context for the submission of the ‘Research Plan’ (which is the purpose of this phase of the module), the student will gain a proficient knowledge of relevant research methods and planning. Thus in connection with the core learning outcomes resulting from the research plan, the student will additionally gain a proficient understanding of the wider context of research methods and evaluate the fittingness of the chosen method.

In this phase a student must:

The dissertation supervisor finally prepares the student for external examination of the proposed dissertation.

At the end of the Research Plan is submitted as a portfolio containing six elements:

The Research Plan provides students with a clear framework to guide their research question, a structure into which they can fit their scholarly research, and a pathway to the completion of the dissertation. During the module, students meet with their supervisor twice per month.

The student’s attention is directed to the literature on the topic of the proposed dissertation, and thus methodological research guidance, beyond the oral instruction of the student’s supervisor, will be provided within the domain of study specific to the student’s dissertation. This will vary considerably, depending upon the topic of the dissertation, and it forms a natural component of the literature survey. (Thus it is neither appropriate nor possible to list here the bibliographic references that will be needed by the student. We have, however, provided valuable works of general research guidance and reference, and works to aid the student in evaluating the best research method for the dissertation.)

Dissertation writing

Upon completion and approval of the ‘Research Plan’, students will have a well-defined research topic, a clear structure to organise their proposed research, a firm grasp of the relevant literature, and a practical timeline in which to conduct their research.

In the dissertation module, the aims of the methodology module are fulfilled and a 20,000-word dissertation is written. The dissertation will constitute a substantial, original, independent piece of research, which is clearly articulated in relation to the primary evidence and secondary literature, and which is organised in relation to the plan first envisaged in the methodology module.

Regular supervision meetings keep the student on course with the timeline agreed in the methodology module. Supervisory meetings concentrate on a pre-submitted piece of research in a pattern that continues until the first draft of the dissertation is complete.

Although students may request twice-weekly meetings during the first 2 weeks of the dissertation, it is expected (and students typically prefer) not to meet more than twice per month thereafter. This allows the students time to develop their independent research and writing.

After the completion of the first draft, meetings focus on the harmonisation of the parts, adjustments to the overall argument, and the supervisor seeks to ensure that the student guides the dissertation with a single, coherent line of enquiry.

Dissertations are often shortened down to 20,000 words at this stage in order to focus the argument. The final meetings with the student focus on polishing the editorial aspects of the dissertation, and helping the student prepare for the examination.