Courses Summer Term 2025
Monday 28th April to Thursday 14th July
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 28th April:
Problems in Philosophy
Jane O’Grady
Would it ever be possible for a machine to think? Is ‘free speech’ a retrograde notion? Does morality amount to what different cultures, or cultural groups, believe to be good and bad? How far is ‘identity politics’ helpful, and to whom? Would you want to live in a virtual reality world in which you could have total power over what happens to you? 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.
MON 7-9pm: 8 weeks starting 12th May:
Philosophy of Science
Keith Barrett
Is there such a thing as the ‘scientific method’ which can be stated in a formula? How, in practice, do scientists evaluate rival theories? Does science give us a true ‘picture’ of reality, or are scientific theories merely tools for making ever more accurate predictions? What is the relationship between science and technology? Does scientific knowledge inevitably lead to the domination of nature, or can science help us to live in harmony with nature? We will study the classic theories of the philosophy of science: Inductivism and Falsificationism, and explore Lakatosian research programmes and Kuhnian paradigms, before examining the recent findings of the sociology of knowledge.
TUE 11am-1pm: 10 weeks starting 29th April:
Philosophy of Surrealism
Anja Steinbauer
TUE 1.30pm-3pm: 10 weeks starting 29th April:
Political and Social Philosophy Reading Group
Anja Steinbauer
TUE 3pm-5pm: 10 weeks starting 29th April:
War and Philosophy
Anja Steinbauer
TUE 7-9pm: 10 weeks starting 29th April:
History of Western Philosophy part 3
Full outline here history of western philosophy course outline and reading Part 3 2025
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 (the first term) ran from the ancient Greeks to John Locke; Part 2 (last term) ran from Spinoza to Kant; Part 3 (this term) runs from Schopenhauer to Sartre. You can join any or all of these courses.
THUR 1.30-3pm: 10 weeks starting 1st May:
Kant Reading Group
Anja Steinbauer