Courses Autumn Term 2025
Monday 29th September to Wednesday 10th December
2024-25 Courses will be taking place online and we have grouped them per term. Please contact the tutor for further details as to how exactly their courses will operate. Registration fees will standardly be £135 unless otherwise stated (some shorter courses will be offered at lower fees). Tutors also have the discretion to offer a concessionary reduction of £20. In other respects, the details given at enrolment apply.
MON 1-3pm: 10 weeks starting 29th September:
Problems in Philosophy
Jane O’Grady
Would you save the lives of five people by letting one person die? How free are you?Are you the same person you were twenty years ago? In any case, who on earth areyou? This course will consist of debating these and other philosophical questions and thought experiments. Students will decide each week what topic to discuss, and will be sent relevant material in advance.
Cost: £135 (10 weeks)
Email: janeogrady101[at]gmail.com
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MON 7-9pm: 8 weeks starting 6th October:
After Phenomenology: Ricoeur, Derrida, Levinas and Lyotard
Keith Barrett
At the beginning of the 20th century, Edmund Husserl proposed a completely new start for philosophy based on his method of phenomenology, and Husserl’s work, as developed by himself and his pupils (such as Martin Heidegger) formed the basis for the main tradition in continental philosophy in the first half of the century. On this course we will study four of the most important thinkers, from the second half of the 20th century, who developed Husserl’s ideas beyond phenomenology as he conceived it, or who criticized the foundations of his project in a way that led to debates which are central to contemporary thought.
Cost: £100 (8 weeks)
Email:keith[at]londonschoolofphilosophy.org
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MON 11am to 1pm: 6 weeks starting November 3rd:
Reading Philosophy 1
Sam Fremantle
This reading group is focussed on reading and understanding a variety of philosophical texts embracing all the major fields in philosophy: ethics, political philosophy, epistemology, aesthetics, and metaphysics. Philosophers covered include Descartes, Hume, Locke, Bernard Williams, and Robert Nozick. The readings are all available in the collection Reading Philosophy*, which those attending the group are advised to purchase. Those in the public domain will also be made available on the class Moodle. It is not a taught course but a reading group, so attendees are requested to attempt the reading in advance of the sessions. It will not be taught so much as ‘guided’. Because the guides are learning the texts themselves to some extent, the sessions are offered for free!
*Second edition 2021, edited by Guttenplan, S.,Hornsby, J., Janaway, C., Schwenkler, J. Published by Wiley Blackwell. Kindle edition available.
Cost: Free (6 weeks)
Email:sam[at]londonschoolofphilosophy.org
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TUE 11am-1pm: 10 weeks starting 30th September:
Philosophers in Hell 1: Dante’s ‘Inferno’
Anja Steinbauer
Email:anja[at]philosophynow.org
TUE 1.30pm-3pm: 10 weeks starting 30th September:
20thC Political and Social Philosophy Reading Group
Anja Steinbauer
Email:anja[at]philosophynow.org
TUE 6-8pm: 10 weeks starting 1st 30th September:
History of Western Philosophy part 1
Jane O’Grady
This course gives a chronological survey of some the great Western philosophers who
have formulated, and tried to solve, enduring puzzles – what reality is, who we are, how we should live. It traces the ongoing argument, and invites your contributions to it. Part 1 (this term) runs from the ancient Greeks to John Locke (see course outline 1 for more details; Part 2 runs through some Enlightenment philosophers to Hegel; Part 3 runs from Schopenhauer to Sartre (see course outline 3 for more details). You can join any or all of these courses.
Cost £135 (10 weeks)
Email:janeogrady101[at]gmail.com
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WED 11am-1pm: 6 weeks starting November 5th:
Ethics: Historical Perspectives Part 1: Plato and Aristotle
Sam Fremantle
This course looks at the work of two of the most famous philosophers of all time, Plato and Aristotle. Although Plato and Aristotle’s work covered a wide range of philosophical areas, this course, as title suggests, will focus primarily on their Ethics, and almost exclusively on two works: The Republic and The Nichomachean Ethics. Central topics in The Republic include the relationship between justice, morality, and the state. Central to pics in The Nichomachean Ethics include the nature of virtue and the justification of virtue as central to morality. The course will also look at selected interpratations and arguments of modern commentators on Plato and Aristotle.
Cost:£81 (6 weeks)
Email:sam[at]londonschoolofphilosophy.org
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THURS: 11am-1pm: 10 weeks starting October 2nd:
Classical Chinese Philosophy 1
Anja Steinbauer
Email:anja[at]philosophynow.org
THURS: 1.30pm-3pm: 10 weeks starting October 2nd:
Kant Reading Group
Anja Steinbauer
Email:anja[at]philosophynow.org