Topics in Philosophy (V7094)

30 credits, Level 4

Autumn teaching

On this module, you’ll explore some of the key philosophers and arguments in recent and contemporary philosophy. You’ll enter the world of existentialist philosophers such as:

• Jean-Paul Sartre
• Simone de Beauvoir
• Friedrich Nietzsche
• Søren Kierkegaard
• Martin Heidegger
• Albert Camus.

You’ll explore key concepts of:

• freedom
• facticity
• ambiguity
• absurdity
• existence.

You’ll also examine contemporary issues such as:

• anger
• love
• testimonial injustice
• transformative experience
• consciousness
• extended cognition
• equality
• identity
• conceptual engineering.

Familiarity with this wide range of key concepts and ideas will give you the tools and confidence to tackle the rest of your degree. It will also help you to understand philosophy as it’s practised today.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 300 hours of work. This breaks down into about 50 hours of contact time and about 250 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2026/27. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.

Courses

This module is offered on the following courses:

• Philosophy BA