Courses Summer Term 2027
Term begins Monday 19th April
(Please note that Mondays 3/5 and 31/5 are Bank Holidays)
2026-27 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 12th April and ending 28th June:
Philosophy of the Enlightenment
Jane O’Grady
For better or worse, we are all children of the Enlightenment — a period of intense flowering in philosophy, science and the arts which began in Europe in the mid-17th century and lasted for almost 150 years. During it, the self became the starting-point for philosophical enquiry, reason was elevated above tradition and theology, and God began to die. The Enlightenment was once acclaimed by the left for liberating us from political and religious oppression, and loathed by the right, but recently those positions have reversed. We’ll ask why, while looking at some of the philosophers of the Enlightenment, including Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Rousseau and Kant, with Dr Alex Douglas from St Andrews University speaking about Spinoza.
Cost: £135 (10 weeks)
Email: janeogrady101[at]gmail.com
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MON 7 – 9pm: 8 weeks starting 17th May:
Philosophy of Science
Keith Barrett
Is there such a thing as the ‘scientific method’? 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 findings of the sociology of knowledge.
Cost: £100 (8 weeks)
Email:keith[at]londonschoolofphilosophy.org
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TUE 11am -1pm: 10 weeks starting 20th April:
Renaissances: Romanticism
Anja Steinbauer
If the Renaissance sought to recover the wisdom of the past, Romanticism asked how a disenchanted world might once again become meaningful. This course explores the philosophical ambitions of the Romantic movement through writers and thinkers including Rousseau, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Novalis, Hölderlin, Blake, Schelling and Goethe. Themes include imagination, nature, beauty, freedom, myth and reason. Throughout, we consider whether Romanticism offers not simply an historical episode but a recurring response to periods of cultural uncertainty, inviting reflection on the intellectual challenges of the twenty-first century.
Cost: £135 (10 weeks)
Email:anja[at]philosophynow.org
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TUE 1.30 – 3pm: 10 weeks starting 20th April:
20th C Political and Social Philosophy Reading Group
Anja Steinbauer
Cost: Free (10 weeks)
Email:anja[at]philosophynow.org
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TUE 6 – 8pm: 10 weeks starting 20th April:
History of Western Philosophy part 3
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 3 runs from Schopenhauer to Sartre. See course outline 3 for more details.
Cost: £135 (10 weeks)
Email: janeogrady101[at]gmail.com
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THUR 11am -1pm: 10 weeks starting 22nd April:
Close Readings in Philosophy: Spinoza’s Ethics
Anja Steinbauer
This term we will read Spinoza’s Ethics proposition by proposition, tracing the unfolding of his ambitious system. Particular attention will be given to the relationship between metaphysics, psychology, ethics and freedom, and to the remarkable way in which Spinoza’s geometrical method shapes both form and thinking.
These seminars are devoted to the slow reading of major philosophical works. Rather than surveying a thinker’s ideas or offering an historical overview, we work carefully through the text itself, examining its arguments, literary form, conceptual vocabulary and philosophical assumptions. Participants are encouraged to grapple with the work in all its difficulty, allowing ideas to emerge through sustained engagement with the original text.
Cost: £135 (10 weeks)
Email:anja[at]philosophynow.org
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THUR 1:30 -3pm: 10 weeks starting 22nd April:
Kant Reading Group
Anja Steinbauer
Cost: Free (10 weeks)
Email:anja[at]philosophynow.org