MPhil Stud Modules

This is the list of provisional MPhil Stud modules due to be running in the 2023/24 academic year.

Click on the titles below to see more information, including a module description and a provisional syllabus. Module leader email addresses can be found via the staff pages. For times and locations, please use the UCL common timetable (which will be updated in early September).

Term 1

PHIL0025 Logic and its Limits (A)

Module Leader: Owen Griffiths

Level: 7

Term: 1

Area: A

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: Coursework, 4 Problem Sets (25% each)

Description: The purpose of this module is to present the basic methods and results of contemporary logic. The emphasis is on the practical skill of formulating and proving results about logical systems. Students are introduced to basic set theory, enumerability and non-enumerability, isomorphisms and cardinality of models, the Compactness and Löwenheim-Skolem Theorems, inexpressibility results, soundness and completeness results. Most of the course is based on Jeffrey & Boolos' Computability and Logic (2007, CUP, 5th edition).

PHIL0041 Early Wittgenstein (C)

Module Leader: José Zalabardo

Level: 7

Term: 1

Area: C

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: One essay (4,500 words)

Description: The purpose of this module is to present some of the central doctrines of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The module focuses on the account offered in this book of the structure of reality and our ability to represent it in thought and language. We will also study ideas of Bertrand Russell and Gottlob Frege that are relevant for the development of Wittgenstein’s thought.

The module will enable you to understand these important ideas, overcoming the obscurity of Wittgenstein’s writing. This will contribute to your general understanding of the central philosophical issues that Wittgenstein addresses. It will also develop your ability to interpret difficult philosophical texts.

Topics covered by the module will include:

Russell’s dual-relation theory of judgment

Russell’s multiple-relation theory of judgment

Russell and Wittgenstein on forms

Wittgenstein’s picture theory

Frege on unity and unsaturatedness

Wittgenstein on the unity of the proposition

Wittgenstein on the unity of facts

Objects and expressions as common structural features

Substance and simplicity

Teaching Delivery

The module will be delivered by weekly two-hour lecture/seminars, combining presentation of material by the lecturer and general discussion of the ideas presented. You will be expected to do preparatory reading for each session.

By the end of the module:

You will have gained a deep understanding of some of the central ideas put forward by Wittgenstein in his early period.

You will be able to connect Wittgenstein’s proposals to contemporary debates in metaphysics, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind.

You will have enhanced your interpretative skills regarding difficult philosophical texts.

You will have developed your ability to grasp and discuss highly abstract philosophical issues.

Recommended Reading

In preparation for the module, we advise reading the following core texts. These can be found in the UCL Library:

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1974. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by D. F. Pears and B. McGuinness. 2nd ed. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Original edition, 1961.

Zalabardo, José L. 2015. Representation and Reality in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

PHIL0059 Philosophy, Politics and Economics of Health (B)

Module Leader: Leah Sidi (SELCS)

Level: 7

Term: 1

Area: B

Shared: MA

Assessment: Essay 4,500 words

Description: This module examines some central ethical, economic and political problems facing health policy in the UK and abroad, especially in relation to social justice. Topics covered include: how to allocate healthcare resources (e.g. should the NHS cover all new drug treatments, regardless of how expensive they are? Who should decide?); the appropriate role of the state in protecting and promoting health (e.g. should smoking be banned?); when inequalities in health and life expectancy are unfair; and special challenges posed by infectious diseases.

Reading list: http://readinglists.ucl.ac.uk/modules/phil0059.html

PHIL0066 The Philosophy of Altruism (B)

Module Leader: Ben Sorgiovanni

Level: 7

Term: 1

Area: B

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: Essay 4,500 words

Description: Effective Altruism is a social movement that encourages people to do good and to use evidence and careful reasoning to make their altruistic efforts maximally effective. Though the movement is relatively young, it has already had a significant impact. This module considers philosophical questions that are important for both evaluating and guiding the movement. They include: Are we obligated to give to charity? Should we always save the greater number? Should we always give to the most effective charities? Is it wrong to make the world worse for future generations? Should we be vegetarians? Is it wrong to contribute to collective harms? Is it wrong to support sweatshops? Can small harms to the many outweigh severe harms to the few? Should we be Effective Altruists?

Sample Reading

• Peter Singer, ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’, Philosophy & Public Affairs 1 (1972): 229–243

• Alastair Norcross, ‘Puppies, Pigs, and People’, Philosophical Perspectives 18 (2004): 229–245

• Julia Nefsky, ‘Fairness, Participation, and the Real Problem of Collective Harm’, Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 5 (2015): 245–271

Module Assessment

The module is assessed by a summative essay. For MPhil students, the maximum length is strictly 4500 words.

Students are strongly encouraged to write a formative essay, which is due around the end of week 8. The formative essay is intended to serve as a draft of the summative and should therefore answer the same question. The maximum length is strictly 2000 words.

PHIL0067 Free Speech and Theories of Autonomy (B)

Module Leader: Robert Simpson

Level: 7

Term: 1

Area: B

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: One essay (4,500 words)

Description: This module investigates two complementary topics: (1) theories of autonomy, as they have been developed by philosophers writing about ethics and the self, and (2) defences of free speech, as they have been developed (and criticised) by legal and political theorists. With respect to (1), we’re interested in what it means to be autonomous, how and why the process of desire-formation has a bearing on a person’s autonomy, and whether it is possible for someone to autonomous desire their own subordination. With respect to (2), we’re interested in what kind of conception of autonomy – and of the individual, as such – different theorists have invoked in seeking to defend free speech, and what kinds of theoretical justifications for free speech can be developed in light of different conceptions of autonomy. The insights into the nature of autonomy that we gain from thinking about the topics in part (1), will inform the critical inquiry that we carry out in part (2). Assessment is via a major essay, and there will usually be some kind of minor, reading-related tasks that you’re required to complete during the term. Classes are a mixture of lectures, small-group discussion, and whole group discussion. Representative examples of readings that we look at during the course are John Christman, “Autonomy and personal history” (Canadian Journal of Philosophy 21/1, 1991, pp. 1-24), and Susan Brison, “The autonomy defense of free speech” (Ethics 108/2, 1998, pp./ 312-39).

PHIL0074 Recent Work in Metaphysics (A)

Module Leader: Simona Aimar

Level: 7

Term: 1

Area: A

Shared: MA

Assessment: Essay (3,500 words - 80%) & Presentation (20%)

Description: This course focuses on causation and modality. But what are causation and modality? Causation is easy to introduce: it's about what it means to say that something causes something else. Modality might sound more obscure at first: yet it's about familiar notions too, the notions of possibility and necessity. The goal of our seminar is to figure out how these notions connect to one another. In order to find out whether something causes something else, we often tend to consider what could possibly or necessarily happen if a given event were to happen, or not to happen. To many, this suggests that there is a close relation between notions such as possibility, necessity and causation. But what relation exactly? In this course we will explore, formulate and assess several answers to this question.

PHIL0077 Equality (B)

Module Leader: Kacper Kowalczyk

Level: 7

Term: 1

Area: B

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: One essay (4,500 words)

Description: In everyday moral and political arguments appeals to equality are ubiquitous. But what do these appeals amount to? In this course we will attempt to gain a deeper understanding of equality in moral and political thought. The first part of the course will focus on the idea of moral equality. What grounds all human beings’ equal moral status? What does it even mean to say that all human beings are morally equal? Is the moral equality of all people consistent with our favourable treatment of our children, family, and friends? Are non-human animals morally equal to humans? In the second part of the course, we will focus on the idea of political equality. Specifically, we will consider what the equal status of all citizens implies about how we should distribute power and make political decisions. Does a commitment to the equality of all citizens commit us to democratic rule? If the political decisions made in Community A significantly affect the members of Community B, should the members of Community B have a (democratic?) say in Community A’s decision? Might this commit us to some form of global democracy?

PHIL0091 Practical Criticism 1

Module Leader: Sebastian Gardner

Level: 7

Term: 1

Area: N/A

Shared: 1^st Yr MPhil Stud Only

Assessment: Attendance and participation / commentaries

Description: This module is designed to train postgraduate students in the close readings of philosophical texts. One text will be chosen for the whole term and will be read in close detail. Students will write commentaries on the text every week. Texts can be either contemporary or historical and can vary year by year. Texts for Practical Criticism 1 will be normative in nature (i.e. on ethics, or political philosophy, value theory generally etc.)

PHIL0092 Recent Philosophical Writings 1

Module Leaders: Tim Button and Ulrike Heuer

Level: 7

Term: 1

Area: N/A

Shared: MPhil Stud & PhD

Assessment: Presentations, attendance and participation

Description: This module is designed to familiarize the student with recent research in philosophy in a diverse range of areas. Recent journal articles are discussed in a seminar led by student presentations. Each student on the course will be required to make a presentation at some point in the year. The seminars are fortnightly.

PHIL0097 Graduate Studies in Kant (C)

Module Leader: Sebastian Gardner

Level: 7

Term: 1

Area: C

Shared: MA

Assessment: Essay 4,500 words

Description: Kant's System of Freedom and Nature: The Third Critique. The Critique of the Power of Judgement ('Third Critique') seeks to transform the two great divisions of Kant's thought – the theory of nature presented in the Critique of Pure Reason, and the theory of freedom presented in Kant's practical works – into a unified philosophical system. The importance of this task for Kant and the difficulty that it poses are considerable. It is vital that the distinction of freedom and nature not be collapsed, since without it morality will be confused with empirical knowledge and nature with things in themselves, yet Kant's dualism generates a problem that, he makes clear, must be solved, for we cannot coherently regard ourselves in the same breath as members of two disjointed worlds, the one empirical and the other intelligible. Kant seeks accordingly in the Third Critique to show that his dualism can be mediated without being dismantled, and that the result has sufficient coherence for the purposes of human reason. This involves the introduction of major new elements, and the extension of Kant's philosophy to two areas not previously treated, namely aesthetics and biology. Their common significance, Kant argues, is that they disclose a purposiveness in nature, a meaning in appearances, that transcends natural scientific knowledge and lends the world an aspect of human intelligibility, whereby we find ourselves at home in it.

The course is divided into three parts. Part One is devoted to making clear Kant's need to provide a mediation of freedom and nature. In the first week (which will provide those who have not studied Kant previously with a background for what follows) we look at the 'great chasm', as Kant calls it, separating the domains of freedom and nature, and at contemporary critics of his dualism. The second week examines Kant's philosophy of history, in which we see his commitment to interpreting history both as a natural process, hence as subject to empirical law, and as answering to the interests of human freedom. This raises in a new form, which Kant has not yet elucidated, the question of how such a double view is possible.

Part Two looks at the main divisions of the Third Critique, the Critique of the Aesthetic Power of Judgement, and the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgement. We begin with Kant's account of judgements of taste. The key to attributions of beauty to objects lies, Kant proposes, in the special harmony of our cognitive powers that they occasion, a state of 'free play' of imagination and understanding, yielding a pure pleasure in which the subject registers the object's 'form of purposiveness'. Kant next sets the sublime in opposition to the beautiful. The objects we call sublime are distinguished by their formlessness and defy assimilation by our mental powers, but the mixture of pain and pleasure that defines sublimity is also, according to Kant, an experience of nature's purposiveness, albeit of a 'negative' kind. We then look at Kant's proto-romantic theory of fine art, and his interpretation of the beautiful as a 'symbol' of the supersensible.

In the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgement Kant attempts to do justice to the difference of organic from inorganic nature, and our conceptualization of the former as purposively organized. In defending natural teleology, Kant must walk a fine line between affirming that there is (contra the Darwinian world-view) more to nature than mechanistic causality, and readmitting (contra Aristotelians and deists) dogmatic metaphysics. We look first at Kant's analysis of the appearance that organisms give of a species of form that transcends mechanism, and then at his use of transcendental idealism to reconcile the purposiveness of organic nature with mechanistic explanation.

Returning to the original question of how nature and freedom can be unified, in Part Three we look at the two places in the text where Kant gives his explicit answer to the question. First, Kant formulates in the Introduction to the Third Critique an original and complex hypothesis, which supplements his earlier teachings, namely that our power of judgement, like our other rational powers, has an a priori principle of its own. The principle in question is that of nature's purposiveness for our cognition. In the final week we consider the concept introduced late in the Third Critique of the 'intuitive intellect', described by Kant as a mode of cognition in which the dualities constitutive of human reason are transcended and the whole is apprehended prior to its parts. We have no knowledge of the intuitive intellect, just as we have no knowledge of God, but the Idea thereof is necessary for us. Though intended by Kant to bring to a conclusion his argument with Spinoza – whose monism Kant regarded as the precise antithesis of his own standpoint, and as its strongest competitor – the concept of the intuitive intellect stimulated Kant's major idealist successors to regard the Third Critique not as a systematic end point but as the basis for new philosophical construction.

The Third Critique contains therefore an aesthetic theory and a biological theory, each of which can be taken on their own. Considered as a whole, the work represents the consummation of Kant's system and provided the springboard for German Idealism, while Kant's problem of reconciling freedom and nature endures to the present day.

The weekly readings consist of manageable extracts from the Critique of the Power of Judgement. The course is designed in such a way that, as a cumulative picture of Kant's system builds up, each weekly topic can be understood as concerned with an independent philosophical problem.

PHIL0099 MPhil Stud Thesis Preparation Seminar

Module Leader: John Hyman

Level: 7

Term: 1 and 2

Area: N/A

Shared: 2^nd Yr MPhil Stud Only

Assessment: Presentations

Description: This course will instruct MPhil Stud students in the preparation for their thesis, which they will start writing in their second year. The course will address questions to do with the content of particular students' theses, as well as general advice about the structure and planning of thesis preparation. Students will be expected to write, distribute to the class, and orally present, two pieces of their own thesis research each term.

PHIL0165 The Philosophy and Ethics of Climate Change (B)

Module Leader: Kacper Kowalczyk

Level: 7

Term: 1

Area: B

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: 100% Coursework (4,500 words)

Description: Climate change not only raises extremely important practical challenges, but a host of deep ethical and epistemic questions. The ethical questions you will study include the proper scope of moral concern (e.g., human centred versus biocentric views); individual and collective responsibilities to mitigate climate change; what we owe to future generations; and the permissibility of geoengineering. You will also examine epistemic questions about the nature and status of evidence for climate change, including the epistemic status of climate change models, and which types of climate change scepticism are reasonable. Core skills focused on are those of philosophical reasoning and argumentation. The module would be suitable for non-philosophy students with an existing interest or expertise in climate change, but such students may find it hard going at times.

PHIL0174 Agency and Responsibility (B)

Module Leader: John Hyman

Level: 7

Term: 1

Area: B

Shared: MPhil Stud Only

Assessment: Essay 4,500 words

Description: This course will include discussion of all or most of the following topics: agency; intentional action; voluntary action; the doctrine of double effect; the guise of the good; the voluntary act requirement in the criminal law; responsiveness to reasons; responsibility for attitudes; justifications and excuses; responsibility, answerability, and liability. Each of the meetings will involve close study of an article or chapter on the topic, to be read in advance.
Background reading: G.E.M. Anscombe, Intention; J. Hyman, Action, Knowledge, and Will, espec. chs. 1, 2, 4, 5. H.L.A. Hart, Punishment and Responsibility, espec. chs.2, 4, 6, 9.

PHIL0177 Recent Work in Moral Philosophy (B)

Module Leader: Joe Horton

Level: 7

Term: 1

Area: B

Shared: MPil Stud Only

Assessment: Essay 4,500 words

Description: This module provides students with an opportunity for deep engagement with recent work in moral philosophy. We cover five topics across the ten classes, with two classes on each topic. These topics are likely to include:

Moral Aggregation

Is there any number of people you should save from a large burden, such as paralysis, rather than saving one person from a very large burden, such as death? Is there any number of people you should save from a small burden, such as a migraine, rather than saving one person from a very large burden, such as death? Many people answer these questions ‘yes’ and ‘no’, respectively. Can this position be defended?

> Indicative Reading: Alex Voorhoeve, ‘How Should We Aggregate Competing Claims?’, Ethics 125 (2014): 64–87

Collective Harm

Many of our choices collectively inflict grave harms on humans, animals, and the environment. Think of buying clothes from sweatshops, eating meat, or driving gas-guzzling cars. However, when considered individually, these choices seem to make extremely little difference to anyone, and they might even make no difference at all. This makes it difficult to explain why we ought not to make these choices. Is there a plausible explanation?

> Indicative Reading: Julia Nefsky, ‘Fairness, Participation, and the Real Problem of Collective Harm’, Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 5 (2015): 245–271

Moral Uncertainty

You have a slight preference for the burger, but the salad also sounds nice. You stare hard into the distance, wondering whether the vegetarians are right. You cannot decide—it seems just as likely that they are right as that they are wrong. What should you do?

You give up on assessing vegetarianism and reason as follows: If the vegetarians are wrong, it is slightly better for you to choose the burger, for that is what you prefer. If they are right, it is much better for you to choose the salad, for choosing the burger would be morally very bad. So, taking both prudential and moral considerations into account, the expected value of the salad is greater than that of the burger. So, you should choose the salad.

Your reasoning seems plausible. But it assumes that what you should do is sensitive to your moral uncertainty—to your levels of confidence in competing moral theories. Is this assumption correct? What are its consequences?

> Indicative Reading: William MacAskill and Toby Ord, 'Why Maximize Expected Choice-Worthiness?', Noûs 54 (2020): 327–353

PHIL0194 post-Kantian Continental Philosophy (C)

Module Leader: Jake McNulty

Level: 7

Term: 1

Area: C

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: Essay 4,500 words

Description: In the 19th and 20th centuries, philosophers on the European continent grappled with the legacy of the Enlightenment, often personified for them in the figure of Immanuel Kant. This period saw the advent of new schools of thought which challenged the rationalist and universalis outlook of the enlightenment while attempting to remain true to its self-critical spirit. These new post-Enlightenment schools of thought include: historicism; aestheticism; naturalism; social-constructivism; critical theory; existentialism; phenomenology; hermeneutics; (post-)structuralism. This course aims to introduce students to just a few of these challenging schools of thought by considering just a few of the following figures: Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, the Frankfurt School, Heidegger, Sartre, De Beauvoir, Gadamer, Foucault, Derrida. A guiding idea of the course will be that all of these figures and schools, disparate as they are, in some way challenge Kant's Critical Philosophy and his case for the self-sufficiency and autonomy of reason.

PHIL0196 Paradoxes (A)

Module Leader: Andreas Ditter

Level: 7

Term: 1

Area: A

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: Problem Set 1 (15%); Problem Set 2 (15%); Essay. 3000 Words (70%)

Description: This module will be focused on paradoxes. A paradox is a set of jointly inconsistent claims each of which is individually plausible. Paradoxes are not merely entertaining puzzles; they also raise serious philosophical problems. In many cases, they lead us to rethink basic assumptions about some of our most fundamental concepts, including space, time, motion, truth, knowledge, and belief. In this module, we will examine several paradoxes and the philosophical issues they raise. Along the way, students will be introduced to some central conceptual and formal tools that are relevant not only to the paradoxes but also to a wide range of other philosophical debates.
Paradoxes to be discussed may include: Zeno’s paradoxes about space, time and motion; paradoxes of infinity (the Ross-Littlewood paradox, Benardete’s paradox); the Sorites paradox; logical and semantic paradoxes (Russell’s paradox and the Liar paradox); paradoxes of rationality (Newcomb’s problem, Prisoner’s Dilemma); and paradoxes of belief and knowledge (the surprise examination paradox, the preface paradox).

Term 2

PHIL0045 Making Sense of the Senses (A)

Module Leader: Mark Kalderon

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: A

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: One essay (4,500 words)

Description: C.D. Broad offers a comparative phenomenology of vision, audition, and touch highlighting the important differences between them. We will assess Broad’s comparative phenomenology drawing upon analytic, continental, historical and psychological literature. The aim is to introduce the student to advance themes in philosophy of perception through this assessment of Broad’s comparative phenomenology. The class will be conducted as a seminar with student presentations.

PHIL0052 Regulation of Intimacy (B)

Module Leader: Véronique Munoz-Dardé

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: B

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: One essay (4,500 words)

Description: This optional course will be taught in seminar format, with one weekly two-hour meeting. It is designed to introduce students to some central questions in political and moral philosophy. The topic of the course is the politics of sex. It focuses on general ethical concerns raised by state regulation of intimate relations e.g. in marriage or prostitution. Should some things not be for sale? Is consent the key to legitimate interaction? What is involved in one person ‘objectifying’ another? Are there circumstances in which paternalism is permissible or even required?
Readings include Anderson, Herman, Langton, Nussbaum, Pallikkathayil, Parfit, O’Neill, Satz, Saul, Scanlon, Scruton, Shiffrin, Thomson, Wedgwood.

PHIL0065 Philosophy of Art (B)

Module Leaders: John Hyman

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: B

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: One essay (4,500 words)

Description: This course will include discussion of all or most of the following topics in the theory and philosophy of art: beauty; art and craft; aesthetic properties; representation (in the visual arts); the representation of anatomy, space and light in ancient Greek art; realism and truth (as values of art); architecture; psychoanalytic and neuroscientific theories of art; criticism. Five of the meetings will begin with presentations by Prof. Hyman, the other five will be devoted to work by visiting speakers.
Background reading: Malcolm Budd, Values of Art; E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion. Hume, ‘Of the Standard of Taste’; Frank Sibley, ‘Aesthetic Concepts’ & ‘Aesthetic and Non-aesthetic’.

PHIL0068 Metaethics (B)

Module Leader: Ben Sorgiovanni

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: B

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: One essay (4,500 words)

Description: This module will introduce you to contemporary metaethics, a discipline which asks philosophical questions about ethics. The course focuses on three kinds of questions in particular:
1. Psychological and semantic (What is it to make a moral judgment? What is the connection between moral judgment and motivation? Are moral claims capable of being true or false?)
2. Metaphysical (Are there moral facts? Are these facts independent of our moral practices and beliefs? Are they part of the natural world?)
3. Epistemic (Is there such a thing as moral knowledge? If so, how do we acquire it? Are the emotions, for instance, a source of knowledge in ethics?)
In the course of exploring these questions, we’ll familiarise ourselves with and critically assess debates between:
Cognitivists and non-cognitivists about the nature of moral judgment and discourse
Realists and anti-realists about the existence of moral facts
Naturalists and non-naturalists about the nature of moral facts
Empiricists and intuitionists about the nature of moral knowledge

PHIL0073 Feminism and Philosophy (B)

Module Leader: Rory Phillips

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: B

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: One essay (4,500 words)

Description: This course will introduce students to some central topics in feminist philosophy. Topics will include oppression, misogyny, sex and gender, intersectionality, pornography, sexual consent, beauty norms, and work and the family. Through consideration of both classic and contemporary feminist writing, students will be asked to think carefully and critically about feminist approaches to these areas of significant moral, political, and social concern.

PHIL0075 20th Century Philosophy (Later Wittgenstein) (A)

Module Leader: John Hyman

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: A

Shared: MA

Assessment: One essay (4,500 words)

Description: This course will consist in a close reading of the main passage in the Philosophical Investigations devoted to the philosophy of mind: §§243-315. The topics discussed in this passage include the privacy of the mind, the ownership of mental states, our knowledge of our own and others’ mental states, our expression and communication of our mental states, and the impossibility of private language. We may in addition discuss other passages and topics in Wittgenstein’s post-1929 writings relating to action, expression and causation.
Set text: L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
Background reading: Severin Schroeder, Wittgenstein: The Way Out of the Fly-Bottle; P.M.S. Hacker, Wittgenstein’s Place in Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy, chs.1-5, espec. ch.5.

PHIL0079 Advanced Topics on Moral Philosophy: Responsibility, Luck and Excuses (B)

Module Leader: Ulrike Heuer

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: B

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: Essay 4,500 words

Description: We will explore theories of responsibility, in particular their explanations of its grounds, its scope and its limits. We will also discuss some fundamental skeptical challenges to the practice of holding ourselves and others responsible. In light of these general considerations, we will then examine more specific topics, such as responsibility for attitudes, moral luck, blameworthiness, excuses and collective responsibility. The aim of the module is to develop an understanding of the nature of responsibility, and the resources and problems of contemporary approaches.

Introductory readings:

• R. Jay Wallace, Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press 1996.

• Susan Wolf, Freedom Within Reason, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1990. • Daniel Statman (ed), Moral Luck, SUNY Press 1993.

For further information about the specific content of the module in the current year, please don’t hesitate to contact the module leader: u.heuer@ucl.ac.uk

PHIL0086 Reasons and Normativity (B)

Module Leader: Ulrike Heuer

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: B

Shared: MA

Assessment: Essay 4,500 words

Description: We will read papers and chapters of books published in recent years. The topics may include questions regarding the nature of practical reasons and their relation to values, what it is to act for a reason, and how doing so relates to acting intentionally, as well as questions about the nature and the normativity of practical rationality.

For further information about the specific content of the module in the current year, please don’t hesitate to contact the module leader: u.heuer@ucl.ac.uk

PHIL0090 Special Topics in Ancient Philosophy (C)

Module Leader: Professor Rachel Barney (Keeling Scholar in Residence)

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: C

Shared: MA

Assessment: One essay (4,500 words)

Description: A surprising amount of ancient Greek ethical and political thought is organized around the idea of technê (craft, skill, art, expertise). But the concept is in many ways a puzzling one, and its implications elusive. We will look at ancient texts in which philosophers reflect on the nature of craft, use it as a model for virtue [aretê] or for political expertise [politikê technê], or consider its limitations. We will also look occasionally at related issues in contemporary philosophy (including role ethics) and (very briefly) Chinese philosophy. Core readings will include a number of Platonic dialogues (Protagoras, Hippias Minor, Gorgias, and parts of Republic); several books of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (I, II, and VI); Stoic authors including Seneca and Epictetetus; and sophistic and poetic texts.

PHIL0098 Practical Criticism 2

Module Leader: Rory Madden

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: N/A

Shared: 1^st Yr MPhil Stud Only

Assessment: Attendance and participation / commentaries

Description: This module is designed to continue to train postgraduate students in the close readings of philosophical texts. One text will be chosen for the whole term and will be read in close detail. Students will write commentaries on the text every week. Texts can be either contemporary or historical and can vary year by year. Texts for Practical Criticism 2 will be theoretical in nature (i.e. on metaphysics, or epistemology, philosophy of mind or language, philosophy of logic, science or mathematics etc.)

PHIL0099 MPhil Stud Thesis Preparation Seminar

Module Leader: Daniel Rothschild

Level: 7

Term: 1 and 2

Area: N/A

Shared: 2nd Yr MPhil Stud Only

Assessment: Presentations

PHIL0119 Recent Philosophical Writings 2

Module Leaders: Mark Kalderon & Andreas Ditter

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: N/A

Shared: MPhil Stud and PhD

Assessment: Presentations, attendance and participation

Description: Second year of module designed to familiarize MPhil students with recent research in philosophy in a diverse range of areas. Recent journal articles are discussed in a seminar led by student presentations. Each student on the module will be required to make a presentation at some point in the year. The seminars are fortnightly.

PHIL0129 Worlds, Sentences and Measures (A)

Module Leader: Daniel Rothschild

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: A

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: Problem Sets

Description: This module gives an introduction to some of the formal tools most often used in contemporary philosophy. These include probability theory, non-classical logic, and modal logic. A good knowledge of first-order (predicate) logic is presupposed and some familiarity with basic metalogical results (e.g. soundness and completeness) will also be helpful. For undergraduates PHIL0025 Logic and its Limits covers all recommended background, but is not strictly necessary. A main component of the module is regular problem sets on most of which collaboration is encouraged.

PHIL0133 Graduate Studies in Ethics and Political Philosophy (B)

Module Leader: Véronique Munoz-Dardé

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: B

Shared: MA

Assessment: One essay (4,500 words)

Description: The course aims to provide graduate Philosophy students with an understanding of some central themes, theories and arguments in ethics, society and political philosophy. We’ll address abstract questions about the intersection of the good life, the social world, and the role of the state. Syllabus varies by year, but the themes for this course are centered on some of the following topics: paternalism, consent, manipulation and coercion, the significance of freedom, tolerance, free speech, the ideal of equality, contractualism, utilitarianism, authority, needs and well-being, responsibility, …

PHIL0166 Personal Identity (A)

Module Leader: Rory Madden

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: A

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: 100% Coursework (4,500 words)

Description: What are we? What does it take for one of us to survive from one time to another? Are we material things? Are we brains, animals, souls, computer programs, or something else? How do we relate to our bodies? This module addresses questions of personal identity. While some seminal early modern texts will be highlighted, such as Locke’s Essay, we will primarily scrutinize relevant theories and arguments from recent analytic metaphysics and the philosophy of mind.
Background reading for Week 1
• Locke, J., 1975, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, P. Nidditch (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press. (II.xxvii) ‘Of Identity and Diversity’

Further reading
• Snowdon, P. 1990 ‘Persons, Animals and Ourselves’ in The Person and the Human Mind: Issues in Ancient and Modern Philosophy, C. Gill (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 83–107. Reprinted in Crane and Farkas (eds.) 2004 Metaphysics: A Guide and Anthology
• Olson, E. 1997 The Human Animal New York: Oxford University Press
• Parfit, D. 2012 ‘We Are Not Human Beings’ in Philosophy 87: 5–28
• Campbell, T. and J. McMahan, 2017 ‘Animalism and the Varieties of Conjoined Twinning’ in S. Blatti and P. Snowdon (eds.) Essays on Animalism: Persons, Animals, and Identity, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

PHIL0178 Research Seminar in Realism and Antirealism (A)

Module Leader: José Zalabardo

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: A

Shared: MA

Assessment: One essay (4,500 words)

General subject matter of the seminar

In very general terms, the realism/antirealism debate concerns the status of the following thought:

(A) How things stand in the world is, in many respects, independent of us, and yet

(B) we can gain cognitive access to how things stand in the world; that is,

(B1) we can represent things in thought and language as being a certain way, which may or may not coincide with how things are and

(B2) some of these representations can achieve the status of knowledge—we can know that things are as we represent them as being.

The debate arises from a perceived tension between A and B—from arguments to the effect that representation or knowledge are only possible if the independence of the world is abandoned or qualified. Antirealists invoke these arguments to support positions on which reality is somehow dependent on us. Realists maintain that these arguments fail to undermine the independence of the world.

These debates have adopted a wide variety of shapes. The general goal of this seminar is to study specific manifestations of the issue.

Assessment: Essay topics to be agreed with tutor.

SOME BACKGROUND READING

Blackburn, Simon. 1980. "Truth, Realism, and the Regulation of Theory". In Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol. V, Studies in Epistemology, edited by P. French, T. Uehling, Jr. and H. K. Wettstein. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Dennett, Daniel C. 1987. "True Believers". In The Intentional Stance. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Dreier, James. 2004. "Meta-Ethics and the Problem of Creeping Minimalism". Philosophical Perspectives 18:23-44.

Jackson, Frank. 1998. From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defense of Conceptual Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lewis, David. 2009. "Ramseyan humility". In Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism, edited by D. Braddon-Mitchell and R. Nola. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Macarthur, David, and Huw Price. 2007. "Pragmatism, Quasi-realism, and the Global Challenge". In New Pragmatists, edited by C. Misak. Oxford: Clarendon.

Price, Huw. 2011. "Naturalism and the Fate of the M-Worlds". In Naturalism Without Mirrors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Quine, Willard Van Orman. 1960. Word and Object. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, Chapter 2.

I have discussed some of the ideas that I develop in the book in some published articles, including:

"Belief, Desire and the Prediction of Behaviour", Philosophical Issues 29 (2019), pp. 295-310.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/phis.12155

"The Primacy of Practice". Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 86 (2019), pp. 181-99.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/royal-institute-of-philosophy-supplements/article/abs/primacy-of-practice/E388DE2CD07C8AD04257B909A1FC0C60
"Empiricist Pragmatism", Philosophical Issues 26 (2016), pp. 441-61.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/phis.12071

PHIL0184 Philosophy of Arithmetic and Incompleteness (A)

Module Leader: Tim Button

Level: 7

Term: 2

Area: A

Shared: BA and MA

Assessment: 3 problem sets (15%, 15% and 20%) plus essay 3,000 (50%)

Description: Arithmetic is the branch of mathematics which studies the natural numbers — i.e. the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, and so on — and operations on the numbers — like addition and multiplication. This course explores the features that make arithmetic distinctive, and pose unique philosophical challenges. The path through the course is as follows.

1. Arithmetic is infinitary, abstract, a priori and apodictic, necessary, completely general, and scientifically indispensable. You will start by surveying these features, and encounter the general idea of a formal theory of arithmetic.

2. A common sentiment is that, in mathematics, consistency suffices for existence. You will explore this idea, understanding what it means to describe a theory as "consistent", and how one might establish consistency. This will lead into into a discussion of Hilbert's programme, which aimed to provide proofs that (various) mathematical theories are consistent. Famously, this programme floundered when Gödel discovered his incompleteness theorems.

3. You will learn about the technical details behind the incompleteness theorems, including such concepts as: (computable) enumerability, representability, the arithmetization of syntax, Tarski's Diagonal Lemma, Gödel sentences, and consistency sentences.

4. Armed with this technical knowledge, you will assess the philosophical significance of these results, both for Hilbert's programme and for other philosophical positions.

5. To finish the course, you will consider other approaches to the philosophy of arithmetic, and how they deal with the phenomenon of incompleteness.

The course will be based entirely weekly lectures, backed up with classes. Each lecture/class will have compulsory readings.

Please note that the course combines philosophical and formal elements! Although it is not a formal prerequisite, the course will presuppose introductory logic (at the level of first year Introduction to Logic 1 & 2); at the very least, you will need to be comfortable with how first-order logic works. The course will not presuppose any particular prior knowledge of mathematics; only that you know how to count, and can make sense of expressions like ‘x2 + 3x + 2 = 0’ (even if you cannot quite remember how to solve it). Still, if the very idea of looking at an expression like that fills you with horror, this course is not for you. Half of your final grade will be based on your performance in problem sets, which will help to reinforce your understanding of the technical details behind the incompleteness theorems.

Term 3

PHIL0109 The Self in Early Analytic Philosophy (C)

Module Leader: Rory Madden

Level: 7

Term: 3

Area: C

Assessment: 100% Coursework (Essay 4,500 words)

Description: Questions about the existence and nature of the ego, the possibility of self-acquaintance, and the meaning of 'I' occupied many influential figures in analytic philosophy in the first half of the twentieth century. The aim of this module is to reach a critical understanding of some of the key texts and philosophical issues.The core readings range from Russell 1910-11 to Strawson 1959. More recent secondary readings will also be identified, as well as earlier empiricist influences such as Hume, Mach, and James

Reading for Week 1: Russell, B. ‘Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description’ *Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society* 1910-11