Courses Spring Term 2026
Monday January 19th to Thursday 26th March
2025-26 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 11am-1pm: 6 weeks starting 19th January:
Reading Philosophy 2
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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MON 1-3pm: 10 weeks starting 19th January:
Philosophy through Literature
Jane O’Grady
What it is to be human; what love is, how far love, and other feelings, are necessarily play-acted, and how they can be sustained over time; how much truth we can bear to tell ourselves or others, and how valuable or destructive truth-telling can be; how much should be sacrificed in struggles for self-expression and freedom; moments of vision and transcendence – these are the very stuff of literature, which also makes concrete and visceral some of the more standard philosophical issues. This course will look at philosophical insights conveyed in plays, poems, short stories, and excerpts from novels.
Cost: £135 (10 weeks)
Email: janeogrady101[at]gmail.com
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MON 7-9pm: 8 weeks starting 26th January:
Wittgenstein on the Mind, and on Science
Keith Barrett
Coming from the Analytical tradition, Ludwig Wittgenstein revolutionised our understanding of language in the 20th century. In his early work, the ‘Tractatus’, published in 1922, he sought objective structures within language that would anchor words to their referents in the world. But in his later work he rejected this conception, and produced an entirely new way of thinking about language based on paying close attention to the ways in which everyday communication actually works. His later view of language crystallised in the ‘Philosophical investigations’ published posthumously in 1953. On this course, we will focus mainly on Wittgenstein’s later thinking, examining in depth the way his new understanding of language changed his conception of the nature of ‘mind’, and how he came to view the language we use to describe mental events and processes. We will also study the impact of Wittgenstein’s later thought on the philosophy of science and on how we should conceive the whole question of ‘knowledge’.
Cost: £100 (8 weeks)
Email:keith[at]londonschoolofphilosophy.org
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TUE 11am-1pm: 10 weeks starting 20th January:
Philosophers in Hell 2: Dante’s ‘Inferno’
Anja Steinbauer
Email:anja[at]philosophynow.org
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TUE 1.30pm-3pm: 10 weeks starting 20th January:
20thC Political and Social Philosophy Reading Group
Anja Steinbauer
Email:anja[at]philosophynow.org
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TUE 6-8pm: 10 weeks starting 20th January:
History of Western Philosophy part 2
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. Part 2 (this term) is on the Enlightenment — from Spinoza to Hegel. See course outline 2 for more details)
Cost £135 (10 weeks)
Email:janeogrady101[at]gmail.com
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WED 11am-1pm: 10 weeks starting 21st January:
Ethics: Historical Perspectives Part 2: Hume, Kant, and Mill
Sam Fremantle
Cost £135 (10 weeks)
Email:sam[at]londonschoolofphilosophy.org
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THURS: 11am-1pm: 10 weeks starting 22nd January:
Classical Chinese Philosophy 2
Anja Steinbauer
Email:anja[at]philosophynow.org
THURS: 1.30pm-3pm: 10 weeks starting 22nd January:
Kant Reading Group
Anja Steinbauer
Email:anja[at]philosophynow.org