To introduce students to modern metaphysics in its historical context, with a particular focus on the systems of Descartes and Locke and their influences in the present day.

(LO1) Students will be able to distinguish between sound and unsound arguments.

(LO2) Students will be able to build a case for a specific metaphysical position, by weighing theoretical virtues, such as Occam's razor, and metaphysical principles, such as the conceivability principle and the principle of sufficient reason.

(LO3) Students will be able to prepare an argument for presentation in a piece of long-form writing, with a clear understanding of argumentative structure and the use of citations for support.

(LO4) Students will be able to explain philosophical systems, including those of Descartes and Locke, in their historical and intellectual context.

(LO5) Students will be able explain the basic issues, and the standard views, pertaining to Descartes’ essentialism, Locke’s account of the self, and the contemporary philosophy of mind.

(LO6) Students will be able to able to argue for a specific view pertaining to five issues in contemporary metaphysics: God, personal identity, consciousness, free will and time.

(LO7) Students will be able to discuss reality in the partially abstract manner distinctive of metaphysical thought.

(S1) Critical thinking and problem solving - Critical analysis

(S2) Students will develop their skills in thinking critically, analysing problems and analysing and assessing arguments.

(S3) Students will enhance their ability to identify the issues that underlie debates.

(S4) Students will develop confidence in considering previously unfamiliar ideas and approaches, and their ability to identify presuppositions and to reflect critically upon them.

(S5) Students will enhance their ability to marshal arguments and present them orally and in writing.

(S6) Students will develop the ability to perform bibliographical searches, to include (to professional standard) citations and bibliographies in their work and to plan, organise and produce presentations and essays.

(S7) Students will enhance their oral and written communications skills and develop skill in explaining complex material in a precise manner.

(S8) Students will develop their ability to work independently.

(S9) Students will develop their ability to sift through information, assessing the relevance and importance of the information to what is at issue.

(S10) Students will develop their skills in making appropriate use of information technology, information on the World Wide Web and reference works and databases relevant to the discipline.

This module is a historical overview of a vast and complex discipline, and as such is unavoidably incomplete. The goal is to examine why particular texts and philosophers come to be celebrated as ‘important’ or ‘definitive’, and as such the emphasis is not on texts in isolation but the relationship between those texts and their historical and political context. This is not a canon of ‘great philosophers’ but an account of how the history of philosophy works to produce the intellectual landscape of the present day.

Unit 1: The end of medieval philosophy

This section describes the emergence of Rene Descartes’ Meditations Concerning First Philosophy from the charged political and religious landscape of the early 17th century, stressing both the cultural and political transition that Descartes represents in the history of philosophy and his inheritances from all that preceded him, from ancient Greece through to the medieval Sc holastics. In addition to a close reading of the text of Meditations, this unit includes an outline of the historical context of the Reformation and the 30 Years’ War.

Unit 2: The birth of modernity

This section covers the philosophical system of John Locke, outlined in his Second Treatise of Government and Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It focusses on the relationship between Locke’s concept of the self, expressed in his accounts of property, personal identity, and the will, and his political context as a leading parliamentarian (and early Whig) intellectual in the aftermath of the English Civil Wars, and positions this relationship as fundamental to the emergence of the contemporary idea of the liberal subject or individual. The unit combines close readings of three passages from Locke with a historical outline of the Civil Wars and the emergence of agrarian capitalism in the southeast of England, about which Locke wrote extensively.

Unit 3: Con sciousness and the scientific turn

This section attempts to bridge the gap between the early modern period and the present day, using the development of the philosophy of mind as a distinct sub-discipline of metaphysics as its example. Tracing the origins of the philosophy of mind from the emergence of psychoanalysis in the late 19th century, and the verificationist response to it led by the Vienna Circle in the early 20th, this unit focusses on the debate over whether the mind is susceptible to scientific study at all, as represented primarily in the work of Ryle and Nagel.

Teaching Method 1 - Lecture
Description: Lectures are tutor-led activities, offering a map of the syllabus and a framework for independent enquiry-led research. Students are encouraged to engage actively with lectures through, for example: (i) taking opportunities to ask questions during the session; (ii) reflecting on and responding to questions posed to them; (iii) producing questions and notes on issues for subsequent group discussion in seminars.

22 x 1 hour lectures, 2 per week.
Attendance Recorded: No
Notes: The higher lecture hours are in keeping with principles of scaffolded learning, with greater tutor input at Level 4.

Teaching Method 2 - Seminar
Description: Seminars are formative spaces of applied and enquiry-led learning based on pre-set readings and facilitated by the tutor. Seminars thus offer opportunities for students to respond to tutor- and peer-set questions, deepen understanding, apply ideas, develop arguments and build confidence thr ough group discussion. Seminars alternate between close reading of set texts and discursive feedback on ongoing assessment.

11 x 1 hour seminars.
Attendance Recorded: Yes

Delivery model will be FTF on campus or online, as can be accommodated.