Covering all learning outcomes

This module is conducted by independent study, normally in association with a concurrently running 'Philosophical Texts' module. Students will attend the same lectures, seminars or workshops as students taking one of the 'Philosophical Texts' modules, and devise and write an essay on the text being studied. This study will involve the close and systematic reading and critical analysis of a particular text or texts within the history of philosophy, along with a consideration of issues such as the relation of this text to that history, and to the developing conception of philosophical method. If there is no concurent philosophical text module running, a programme of independent student and a schedule of tutorial meetings will be devised in negotiation with a tutor in the Philosophy Department.


Within these aims, and within the learning outcomes given above, the choice of texts will not be fixed. Indicative texts would be:

Lucretius, De rerum natura
Plato, Republic, Phaedo, Meno
Aristotle, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Physics
Augustine, Confessions

The teaching and learning for this module will make us of a concurrently running 'Philosophical Texts' module at level three. Students will attend lectures and seminars for the 'Philosophical Texts' module, but produce an independent assessment for this module. To that end, tutorials will be scheduled near the end of the teaching block to advise and guide students through this independent assessment.

Texts will vary depending on the theme of the module at a given time.

They may include:
C.D.C. Reeve, The Practices of Reason: Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics (Clarendon, 1995)
A. Rorty (ed.) Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, U of California, 1981
Plato, Republic (Penguin, 2001)
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, (ed), . Crisp (CUP, 2000)

Lecture room, seminar room, white or blackboard facilities, library and IT facilities.