Philosophy

You often need a defensible answer to a philosophical question before finding a defensible solution to a practical problem facing today's world. What is a just response to climate change? Should monuments to the past be torn down? Should science deniers have a significant voice in democratic decision-making? The master's programme in Philosophy is designed to produce graduates who are well-placed to tackle the philosophical questions that lie at the root of the challenges of our age. It trains students in the argumentation, analytic, and communication skills required to tackle these questions. 
The programme does this by allowing students to design their degree so that it takes them from where they are to where, in two years, they want to be.  
There are two primary ways the master's programme in Philosophy allows students to design their degree. 
Firstly, students have enormous latitude in deciding the balance between courses and mentored research work. Students can choose a mixture of courses and mentored research work that best suits where they are coming from and where they want to go after graduating. For instance, a student who enters the programme without an undergraduate degree in philosophy would take introductory courses in the areas that interest them, courses in writing, and begin research work with a supervisor who can advise them on how to improve their writing. However, a student who already has an undergraduate degree in philosophy and knows they want to do a doctoral degree after graduating might spend most of their time working on research projects without taking non-obligatory courses. 
Secondly, students have a wide latitude in deciding to what extent they engage in cross-disciplinary training. For instance, a student who aims to go into experimental philosophy can supplement their study of philosophy with courses in experimental methods and statistical analysis, whereas a student who is interested in business ethics could supplement their study of philosophy with courses in entrepreneurship and management. 
This freedom is buttressed by the broad range of topics within philosophy upon which students can focus in our programme. This broad range is a product of the pluralist structure of the university's philosophy department, encompassing analytic philosophy (inclusive of empirical philosophy of science), applied ethics, continental philosophy, the history of ideas and the history of philosophy. Explore the research projects of the current staff here.
It is important that students receive support and coaching in how they approach the task of designing their curriculum. Our programme provides this from day 1, from the first-year MA seminar, which allows students to acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses (and so guides them in how to direct their energies in the subsequent semesters), to the individual and small-group supervision under which students pursue their research projects.