The MPhil is normally two years full-time or four years part-time. Students will undertake independent but closely supervised research leading to a dissertation of 40,000 words.

The DPhil is normally three years full-time or six years part-time. Students will have a significant background in Philosophy and will undertake independent but closely supervised research leading to a dissertation of 80,000 words.

In both programmes students work under the individual supervision of a member of the Philosophy faculty throughout the period of study.

All MPhil and DPhil research students participate in the research students' workshop. This is held one afternoon per term and provides research students the opportunity to present their work and gain feedback from fellow research students and from faculty members. Faculty members also put on workshops once a term to deal with research and career-related issues. In addition you are welcome to attend taught MA classes relevant to your chosen area of research as well as the informal reading groups led by research students.

 

Supervisors and research interests

The unique make-up of the department at Sussex, reflected by the diverse research interests of the faculty, allows for supervision of a wide range of dissertation topics from within both the Anglo-American 'analytic' tradition and the Post-Kantian 'continental' tradition, as well as on historical figures. Possible supervision topics include: Adorno; Aristotle; Hegel; Heidegger; Kant; Marx; Plato; Russell; Wittgenstein; aesthetics; counterfactuals; ethical theory; forgiveness; German idealism; imagination; Indian philosophy; literature and philosophy; mental causation; poetry; possible worlds; ontology; phenomenology and deconstruction; reference; representation; singular thought; social and political theory; the metaphysics of fiction; the nature of justification; the nature of experience; the theory of content; transcendental arguments; truth.

For further details of the Philosophy tutors and their research interests, please see the Philosophy Philosophy Faculty page.

For the research interests of some current and recent DPhil students, see our DPhil student profiles.

Admission requirements

Students should normally have a Masters degree in Philosophy.

Students aiming at a DPhil are initially admitted to the MPhil programme; if their work is judged of a satisfactory standard after a year, they may transfer to the DPhil programme.

In both cases, we request applicants to send a recent piece of work directly to the Programme Convenor, Gordon Finlayson. Please contact him at j.g.finlayson@sussex.ac.uk for further details of our precise requirements.

Further information

For further information, please contact the Programme Convenor, Lucy Allais, at L.L.Allais@sussex.ac.uk