Program Overview

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Philosophy BA (Hons)

Course Overview

The BA (Hons) Philosophy course at Coventry University has five distinctive features:

• Students will explore the major philosophical issues that confront 21st century human beings.
• A particular focus is placed throughout the degree on comparative philosophy—taking in key ideas, problems and thinkers from the local to the global.
• The course will foster application of new and cutting-edge theories and philosophical approaches to problems, including though not limited to posthumanism, critical race theory and ecocriticism.
• Opportunities will be created whereby you engage in original digital research so that you can become a researcher in your own right.
• Students will learn alongside specialist researchers and teachers, through innovative learning methods such as digital publishing, filmmaking and podcasts, building the experience and transferable skills which appeal to a wide range of employees.

What You'll Study

Year One

• Life, the Universe and Everything - 20 credits
  • From the material determinism of astrophysics (and the subatomic/quantum challenge to this) to the technofutures of digital consciousness transfer and artificial intelligence, this module asks the big questions of now while, also considering the ways in which different cultures have wrestled with beginnings and endings through time.
• A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Modern Philosophy - 20 credits
  • This module prepares you to engage with multifarious schools of philosophy, and to combine them and think beyond them in interesting ways. You will learn to wield logic, rhetoric, semiotics, language games, hermeneutics, phenomenology, dialectics, deconstruction, new materialisms and more as you actively apply these methods to contemporary social and political problems, including those that cluster around gender, sexuality, disability, ethnic and racial discrimination, economic inequality, climate justice and technology.
• Thinkers on Trial: The Life and Death of Ideas - 20 credits
  • This module considers controversy in academia, the generation of knowledge and how ideas and research have been used and misused by scholars and scientists. It builds upon case studies such as the Sokal Affair, the David Irving Trial, John Lott and gun rights, and instances of plagiarism. It considers intellectual history through the life and writings of controversial historians, philosophers, scientists and artists.
• Ethics of Climate Change and Interspecies Thriving - 20 credits
  • This module asks how human beings might—and whether they should—extend ethical communities to reciprocal and non-reciprocal others. Considering philosophical approaches including utilitarianism (e.g. Peter Singer), Existentialism (e.g. de Beauvoir, Camus), rights (e.g. Rowls), interspecies companionship (e.g. Haraway) and more, this module is also interested in the ethical relationships that might exist between inorganic matter, the object world and sentient beings.
• Philosophical Methods - 20 credits
  • This module introduces you to the range of methods and tools that are key to the study of philosophy, while putting in place the academic skills required to carry out an undergraduate degree more broadly. Core philosophical methods will include phenomenological methods and deductive and inductive inference. The academic topics covered will support your individual and group projects.
• Creative Philosophy Project - 20 credits
  • You will produce a creative/critical project that interrogates some of the ideas that you have encountered on the course so far. You might, for instance, write a critical utopia/dystopia, write a Socratic dialogue, write a fictional thought experiment, create an inclusive digital/virtual space using the university’s hacklabs or create a digital comic strip, a poster, or an art exhibition. Workshops will provide you with technical and critical support to realise your ideas.

Year Two

• Alternative Facts: Logic and Reason in a ‘Post-Truth’ World - 20 credits
  • This module aims to explore how the philosophy of logic understands facts, asking “is there such a thing as facts”. It will trouble the limits of logical truth and explore how philosophy can speak to issues of knowledge and truths in a “post truth” world.
• Ecophilosophies and Climate Justice - 20 credits
  • This module offers a comparative overview of environmental philosophies and protest movements, preparatory to students designing and critiquing one another’s philosophically-infused manifestos for climate justice. Environmental campaigns from around the world will be considered alongside the writings of European, indigenous and global south environmental philosophers and writers.
• Fierce Feminist Figureheads - 20 credits
  • Beginning with a whistle-stop tour of feminist philosophical tenets through time, this module will then introduce you to ten fierce feminists who have changed the world through their words and actions. You will explore historical events, key texts, and crucial changes in vocabularies, attitudes, and opportunities afforded by these thinkers and learn to critique the world through an intersectional feminist lens.
• Mediated Worlds - 20 credits
  • This module explores the impact that the media has had on conceptions of the world from Plato’s literary challenge to Socrates oral view of philosophy and the impact of the printing press on early modern philosophy to the rise of the Global Village. It will also examine how modern media shapes our understanding of the past and how the advent of the network society, social media and virtual environments have altered philosophical perspectives of the world.
• Philosophy of Gender and Sexuality - 20 credits
  • This module will introduce you to the most important ideas and debates in gender and sexuality. Covering a wide range of texts, including fiction, poetry, essay, film, and philosophy, you will have the opportunity to engage with key concepts of gender and sexuality, and learn to apply them to other forms of writing.
• Experience and Language: Propositions and Signs - 20 credits
  • The modern world is surrounded by words and signs that need interpreting. Yet our interpretation and understanding of these signs are often socially produced (or even socially enforced). This module will examine how our experience of the world and our interpretation of signs is shaped and limited by the language we use.

Placement Year

• UK Work Placement – 0 credits
  • This module provides you with an opportunity to reflect upon and gain experience for an approved placement undertaken during your programme. A placement should usually be at least 26 weeks or equivalent; however, each placement will be considered on its own merits, having regard to the ability to achieve the learning outcomes.
• International Study/Work Placement – 0 credits
  • This module provides you with an opportunity to reflect upon and gain experience for an approved international study/work placement undertaken during your programme. A work/study placement should usually be at least 26 weeks or equivalent; however, each placement will be considered on its own merits, having regard to the ability to achieve the learning outcomes.

Final Year

• The Existentialist Café: Ethics in a Coffee Cup - 20 credits (Semester One)
  • French Existentialism is often dismissed as a product of its time; chain-smoking, polo-neck wearing, coffee-drinking introspection in the wake of two World Wars. Despite this, we see manifestations of its tenets time and again across philosophy, culture, politics and art. This module will cover the main themes of the philosophy, delve into the complexities of its texts and thinkers, and explore some cultural interpretations.
• Disabling Philosophy - 20 credits (Semester One)
  • In this module, you will explore the philosophy of disability and bioethics. You will critically explore scenarios of disability, illness and care. The module will centre the voices and experiences of disabled people in critical philosophical reflection.
• The Lunar Society: Philosophy of the Midlands - 20 credits (Semester One)
  • This module takes as its starting point the midlands-based Lunar Society, an eighteenth-century group of artists, industrialists, inventors and scientists. The legacy of these key members of the English Enlightenment will be considered in the culture, politics and industry of the midlands as we ask: Is it possible to define a philosophy of the Midlands?
• Stubborn Objects: New Materialisms and Flat Ontologies - 20 credits (Semester One)
  • This module responds to the new realisms, new materialisms and flat ontologies of twenty-first-century philosophy. It considers the philosophical heritage which contemporary thinkers including Donna Haraway, Timothy Morton, Graham Harman, and Jane Bennett draw upon in order to contextualize what is new in their work. It aims to critically apply their thinking to contemporary problems including AI, the climate crisis, global inequality and resurgent nationalisms.
• Speculative Fiction - 20 credits (Semester Two)
  • This module embraces the great diversity of works of fantasy, gothic and science fiction and will explore their relationship to each other, place them within literary traditions and examine the ways in which such popular writing is essentially intertextual and cross-generic.
• Are Numbers Real? - 15 credits (Semester Two)
  • This module critically assesses the role of numbers in our everyday lives and culture. Should we think of mathematics as a language, or do numbers speak to reality in a more direct and objective way than is possible in verbal language? Students will extend their knowledge of the use/misuse of statistics and the relationship between propositional logic and mathematics as well as consider alternative uses of numbers such as numerology.
• Enlightenment: Literature, Culture, Modernity - 20 credits (Semester Two)
  • This module aims to introduce students to the literature and philosophy of the Enlightenment. including both eighteenth-century debates about progress and modernity as well as contemporary accounts concerning the significance of ideas about Enlightenment.
• Final Project - 40 credits (Semester Two)
  • This module provides an opportunity for you to exercise independent learning and research skills in the final semester of your degree. You will be able to conceive, plan and carry out an individual programme of discipline-specific research under the supervision of a member of staff, leading to the ultimate submission of a final project in the form of a dissertation, portfolio, or artefact, as appropriate.

How You'll Learn

The teaching methods for BA Philosophy are varied and tailored to individual subjects, as well as to suit a diverse student population.

Teaching Contact Hours

As a full-time undergraduate student, you will study modules totalling 120 credits each academic year. A typical 20 credit module requires a total of 200 hours study. This is made up of teaching contact hours, guided and independent study.

Teaching Hours

Teaching hours vary each semester, year of study and due to module selection. During your first year you can expect 15-18 teaching hours each week. You will also have the option to attend optional sessions including time with a progress coach or to meet with staff for advice and feedback. As you progress through your studies, teaching hours may reduce.

Guided and Independent Study

Throughout your studies, you will be expected to spend time in guided and independent study to make up the required study hours per module. You'll be digging deeper into topics, review what you've learnt and complete assignments. This can be completed around your personal commitments. As you progress through your studies, you'll spend more time in independent study.

Online Learning

As an innovative university, we use different teaching methods including online tools and emerging technologies. So, some of your teaching hours and assessments may be delivered online.

Assessment

This course will be assessed using a variety of methods which will vary depending upon the module.

Assessment methods may include:

• Essays
• Group work
• Presentations
• Reports
• Projects
• Coursework
• Individual assignments.

International Experience Opportunities

Please note that all international experience opportunities may be subject to additional costs, competitive application, availability and meeting applicable visa and travel requirements are therefore not guaranteed.

Entry Requirements

Typical entry requirements:

• UK: 112 UCAS points
• International: 29 points

Fees and Funding

• UK, Ireland, Channel Islands or Isle of Man: £9,535 per year
• EU: £9,535 per year with EU Support Bursary, £16,800 per year without EU Support Bursary
• International: £16,800 per year

Facilities

Students will benefit from studying on our well-equipped, modern campus.

• Delia Derbyshire Building
• The Library
• George Eliot building

Careers and Opportunities

As part of our BA Philosophy programme, you will encounter a range of ethical dilemmas and philosophical problems.

Engaging with these will give you the opportunity to develop advanced analytical expertise, exercise judgement on the critical conjectures of others, and to formulate, discuss and defend your own theses. As a result, you should be able to acquire important transferrable skills in analysis, negotiation and argumentation. Students who complete the course successfully will also gain experience in multi-media communication and the presentation of research findings through specialist digital tools and methods. The overall aim of the course is to give our philosophy students the capabilities and knowledge they need to innovate new approaches to the key problems and challenges of the twenty-first century.

Philosophy graduates can exercise the skills they have gained on their degree in roles that require mental agility and the capacity to consider multiple viewpoints. The study of philosophy, therefore, might be used in a range of different careers, for example: diplomacy; advocacy; teaching; artificial intelligence; healthcare; consultancy and government.