Program Overview

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BA (Hons) Philosophy

The BA (Hons) Philosophy course at Manchester Metropolitan University is designed to empower students to critically engage with the world's rich philosophical history and become independent, persuasive, and influential citizens. This course is designed to help students engage with new perspectives, communicate effectively, and shape the world around them.

Course Overview

Our BA (Hons) Philosophy course is designed not only to teach you to critically engage with our world’s rich philosophical history, but to empower you to become an independent, persuasive and influential citizen. This course is designed to help you to engage with new perspectives, to communicate effectively, and to shape the world around you. It will enrich your knowledge of one of the longest-standing academic disciplines and deepen your capacity to communicate, listen, and persuade – attributes that are essential in the digital age.

Features and Benefits

• Learn from experts - our academics are specialists in their fields, producing cutting-edge research across a broad range of philosophical subjects. And because we bring our expertise into the classroom, you can be confident you’re learning at the forefront of your discipline.
• Wide range of modules - from your second year, you’ll choose from a diverse range of option modules, allowing you to pursue your own interests, including Feminist Ethics and Gender, Race and Sexuality.
• Inclusive curriculum - we offer an inclusive, interdisciplinary curriculum that engages with philosophical thought outside of mainstream Western philosophy and centres the principles of equity, diversity and inclusivity - this will enable you to successfully challenge established modes of thought.
• Assessments - we’ll encourage you to think deeply, critically and creatively through a variety of assessment methods including learning diaries, portfolios, presentations and short essays.
• Employability - we place a strong emphasis on key employability skills, ensuring you have the digital, communication and team-working abilities that employers value. We also offer a distinctive link to the PGCE provision at Manchester Met through the final year Philosophy of Education 1 and 2 modules.
• The Human Sciences Research Seminar Series - a fixture at the University for 40 years and funded by the Royal Institute of Philosophy , it has hosted internationally renowned thinkers, and today offers you the chance to hear from leading philosophers at the forefront of their research specialisms.
• Dedicated support - we believe that a first-class learning experience starts with an open, inclusive, welcoming, and supportive pedagogical environment. The philosophy staff provide rigorous and enjoyable research-led teaching that intellectually stimulates, challenges, and inspires you – both in-person and online.
• Placement or study abroad flexibility - you will have the opportunity to spend your third year studying abroad or boost your career prospects with a placement in industry.

Year 1

In Year 1, you’ll develop a strong foundation in theoretical and practical philosophy. You'll also start your learning as a student in the Department of History, Politics and Philosophy with a strong interdisciplinary emphasis.

Core Modules

• Changing Nature: Perspectives from History, Philosophy and Politics
  • This module explores the historical causes, sustaining factors, and current and future impacts of the environmental crisis, addressing complex social, political, and philosophical issues. You'll see how history, politics and philosophy can work together to deepen your understanding of the crisis and its solutions, while situating your discipline within the broader context of these fields.
• A Critical Introduction to the History of Philosophy
  • This module will introduce you to the fundamental questions, problems, and thinkers in Western philosophy over the last 2500 years. Beginning in classical Greece, you will go on to explore the various stages of philosophical development in the West, looking at central philosophers and problems that have come to define philosophy. You will develop a critical understanding of the rich historical tradition of Western philosophy and explore how the problems it addresses continue to shape our lives today.
• Visions of the Good Life
  • Ever wondered how you should live your life or what makes a "good" life? This module dives into the big questions of ethics and philosophy of religion, helping you explore different views on how to live well. You’ll critically examine key arguments and theories from both Western and non-Western perspectives, including Eastern and African philosophy. By the end, you’ll have the tools to think deeply about these complex debates and understand how they shape the world we live in today.
• Existentialism and the Fate of Philosophy
  • This module takes you through the existential and phenomenological revolution in early 20th-centure philosophy. Existentialism challenges traditional views of philosophy, especially after the decline of Enlightenment ideology and the shift away from religious beliefs in the West. You'll explore how these changes unfold by examining key texts from Classical, Medieval, and Modern philosophy, while also exploring the groundbreaking works of existentialist thinkers.

Year 2

In Year 2, you’ll continue to build on your knowledge and skills developed in Year 1, and will start to specialise in key areas of theoretical and practical philosophy. A range of specialised optional units, such as 'Gender, Race, and Sexuality', and 'Feminist Ethics' will be available to you.

Core Modules

• Fit for the Future
  • This module lets you apply your knowledge and skills to real-world issues, preparing you for placements or graduate jobs. You can choose from a variety of projects created in partnership with external organisations, working either alone or in small groups on contemporary issues, or take part in a short placement.
• Gender, Race and Sexuality
  • This module will provide you with a critical understanding of the intersecting concepts of gender, race, and sexuality. You will engage with the contributions of feminism, gender studies, critical race theory, decolonial theory, and queer theory in making sense of identity, oppression, ideology, power, justice, and resistance. You will be introduced to the work of seminal thinkers in these areas and you’ll be able to critically evaluate overlapping and contrasting social and political theories related to gender, race, and sexuality.
• Metaphysics: In Search of the Real
  • This module explores key metaphysical ideas from classical Greece and early modern Europe. By comparing these two eras, you'll see how ancient, medieval, and early modern thinkers shaped modern European philosophy. The course covers important texts and figures from these periods, including voices often left out of the traditional Western canon.

Option Modules

• Feminist Ethics
  • This module explores topics of contemporary ethical interest and provides you with the philosophical tools in feminist ethics required to make informed decisions about them. What is it for an action to be sexist or misogynistic, and why should we be morally concerned about such attitudes in the first place? In developing your own critical stance on such fundamental issues, you may also study the nature and ethics of implicit bias, stereotyping and advanced issues in feminist ontology.
• Gender, Race, and Sexuality
  • The aim of this module is to provide students with a critical understanding of the intersecting concepts of gender, race, and sexuality. Students will engage with the contributions of feminism, gender studies, critical race theory, and queer theory to making sense of identity, oppression, ideology, power, emancipation, justice, and resistance. Students will be introduced to the work of seminal thinkers in these respective areas, such as Simone de Beauvoir, Nancy Fraser, Iris Marion Young, W. E. B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, Gayle Rubin, Audré Lorde, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and Judith Butler.
• Becoming a Researcher: Humanities Research Internship
  • The Humanities Research Internship module offers students the chance to join a live research project. The aim of the module is to provide History, Politics and Philosophy students with discipline-specific and transferable skills through practical research experience. Students selecting the module will choose one of several research projects offered by staff. Staff will direct and supervise these projects in workshops that include subject content and humanities research skills. The module will equip students with skills to progress to working on their own research projects (the independent project) in the final year.
• Engaging the Humanities 1
  • An innovative module which applies interdisciplinary methods and perspectives in a professional and/or public setting. Students work in interdisciplinary teams on one of a range of projects to showcase interdisciplinary skills in practice.
• Nietzsche’s Philosophy
  • This module will allow you to investigate the revolutionary impact of Nietzsche’s thinking on the history of philosophy. You will study various short texts or excerpts from Nietzsche’s work in order to understand its continuity with the philosophical tradition, as well as its radical novelty in respect to the consideration of ethical as well as metaphysical thinking.
• Virtues and Values
  • This module focuses on advanced topics in normative and practical ethics from a historical and contemporary perspective, and builds on the analytic skills and knowledge base gained at introductory level. Indicative topics include a critical re-assessment of the distinction between consequentialism and deontology in ethical theory, the nature of moral motivation in moral psychology, and theoretical questions about intrinsic value and the extent of its application to real-life ethical problems.
• Phenomenology
  • This course will focus on the writings and ideas of two thinkers: Edmund Husserl ), who re-invents phenomenology at the beginning of the twentieth century, and Simone de Beauvoir ), who responds to his writings and constructs a missing dimension, in terms of a concern with ethics, a concern for the self/personal identity, and with a construct called ‘the second sex’.
• Philosophy and Contemporary Art
  • What is the relationship between philosophy and art? How can we think philosophically about and with art in order to further both our philosophical and artistic thinking? How have contemporary artists engaged with such philosophical problems as space, time, history, sensation, perception, and representation? This module will allow you to evaluate these central questions in relation to both philosophical texts and recent works of art and art practices. Reading both philosophers on art and artists on philosophy, you will develop an understanding of the complex and generative relationship between philosophy and art.
• Philosophy of Religion I
  • This module focuses on some grounding questions in the philosophy of religion. We will consider some basic definitional questions, as well as some more specific questions regarding philosophical understandings of the nature and attributes of God. We will also consider several proofs for the existence of God and the various ways in which religious belief has been philosophically justified.
• Philosophy of Religion II
  • This module focuses on various further topics in the philosophy of religion. We will look at topics that build upon those definitional questions that relate to God’s being and the justification of religious belief. You will study topics that include the problem of evil, karmic responses to the problem of evil, philosophical responses to immortality and the philosophical problems of hell. On completing this module, you will be able to critically respond to some of the most pressing philosophical issues that religion affords us with.
• Sartre’s Being and Nothingness
  • This module will concern itself with the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre through a reading of Being and Nothingness. While being one of the most influential philosophies of the 20th Century, providing a structured account of contemporary life, Sartre’s thought will also allow you to study the historical depth of thought.
• Uniwide Languages
  • Students will take 2x 15 credit Uniwide language modules. Languages available include French, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Modern Standard Arabic or Spanish and at a range of levels, subject to viability. You will be assessed in speaking, listening, reading and writing using an integrated skills approach.

Year 3

This course may offer a placement year option which can be taken up in Year 3. During the placement year, although you will be supervised directly by the company you are employed by, you will also be allocated an Academic/Placement Tutor. They will provide support and guidance, assess your progress and generally monitor your welfare for the time you are away from the University.

Where a placement is not undertaken, you will pursue and write your own research project and study a range of optional final year modules on advanced topics in theoretical and practical philosophy. Please note that the option modules are indicative of what options may be on offer in Year 2 and Year 3 of this programme but may be subject to change.

Core Modules

• Independent Project
  • This module allows you to undertake independent work on a topic of your choosing within the areas of your subject. The project will focus on a carefully defined area, based on your own interests. You will work with an allocated supervisor, culminating in a significant final output which could take the form of an academic dissertation, a podcast series, or a video essay.
• Political and Revolutionary Philosophy
  • This module explores the link between political philosophy and revolution, studying key texts to understand how philosophy has shaped and promoted radical change throughout history. You’ll have the chance to engage with a contemporary social issue, and if you wish, collaborate with an outside organisation, get involved in community action, or plan a public engagement event.

Option Modules

• Philosophy of the Body
  • The aim of this module is to provide an understanding of the significance of the philosophical concern with the body in 20th century continental philosophy, through the work of Henri Bergson and Michel Foucault.
• Philosophy of Revolution
  • Since its inception, philosophy has had a critical function, interrogating the basic presuppositions and prejudices of its time, in order to distance itself from them. But what role does philosophy play in actual social and political change? The aim of this module is to examine the link between philosophy and revolution, exploring how philosophy has conceived radical change, and how it has promoted it, contributing to social and political transformations.
• Philosophy of Literature
  • An analysis of the key concepts of twentieth century linguistics and the philosophical study of literature and language. This module introduces you to the cornerstones of contemporary linguistics and the philosophy of language. Beginning with the influential structuralist linguistic of Ferdinand de Saussure, it goes on to examine, from a philosophical perspective, the privilege accorded to language in the human sciences in the twentieth century. It also explores the ways in which the movements of structuralism, post-structuralism and deconstruction have overturned the traditional understanding of the relation between philosophy and literature, and thus fundamentally shifted philosophy's own understanding of its nature and function.
• Aesthetics
  • What is art? What is beauty? Does beauty have a relation to truth? What is the relationship between art and society? What is the creative act? This module will introduce students to questions such as these through a study of the history of aesthetics and the philosophy of art.
• Alternative Approaches to the Philosophy of Religion
  • This module looks at a variety of approaches to the philosophy of religion from philosophers who have disrupted the canon and whose work has been marginalised. We will discuss the religious philosophy of figures as diverse as Simone Weil and Benedict Spinoza, for example, as well as the relationship between the philosophy of religion and feminist theory. Turning to such figures and problems as these will allow you to develop a sophisticated and nuanced position on issues surrounding the philosophy of religion beyond traditional debates.
• Bioethics
  • The study platform of this module is values, relations and professional ethics, with special emphasis on contemporary philosophical issues in bioethics and real-life ethical dilemmas in the medical humanities in view of emerging technologies. Special emphasis is placed on the concept of patient autonomy in medical ethics and the putative difference between fact and value in the philosophy of medicine. Thus, you may study questions ranging from practical issues, such as the ethics of biomedical enhancement, to the philosophical foundations for person-centred health and care.
• Contemporary Metaethics
  • This module examines advanced issues and challenges in contemporary moral philosophy. Indicative module content includes critical examination of specific moral phenomena, such as moral dilemmas and disagreement, regret and forgiveness. You may also study the recent turn to thick evaluative concepts in metaethics and contemporary neo-Aristotelianism in detail, and discuss the bearing of these approaches for the nature of argument and persuasion in interpersonal moral discourse.
• Gaming and the Humanities
  • This module gives you the opportunity to examine games and gaming as important ways of making sense of a range of contemporary cultural and social issues. Over the course of the module, you will use a range of interdisciplinary frameworks infused with historical, political, and philosophical concepts and perspectives to confront and tackle key questions and subjects about games and gaming.
• Philosophy of Education I
  • The aim of this module is to examine the relation between philosophy and education, and to offer you the opportunity to learn how to plan and deliver a philosophy lesson in a local school or college.
• Philosophy of Education II
  • The aim of this module is to examine the relation between philosophy and education, with reference to key theorists in the history of philosophy and contemporary theory and practice.
• Hegel and the Phenomenology of Spirit
  • This module will investigate one of the most significant texts of the Western philosophical tradition: Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.
• Heidegger and Being and Time
  • Martin Heidegger is a key figure in the transformation of philosophy in the twentieth century. Being and Time is the publication in which his challenge to philosophical tradition begins, and the course will familiarise students with some of the moves made there.
• Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason
  • The aim of this module to provide students with a thorough grounding in the central concepts of and themes in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Students will reflect on the most important topics in the Critique, such as the problem of metaphysics, Kant's transcendental methodology, the synthetic a priori, Kant's theory of space and time, transcendental idealism, the Discursivity Thesis, the Categories, the Analogies of Experience, the Refutation of Idealism, the Paralogisms, the Antinomies, and the Ideas of Reason.
• Pragmatism and American Philosophy
  • The aim of the module is to provide students with a thorough critical grounding in pragmatism, one of Western philosophy's most rich and complex traditions.
• Theism and Paganism
  • This module raises some of the most significant questions of the philosophy of religion. What is the relation between faith and human freedom? What is religious fundamentalism? What is the relation between the monotheistic religions and paganism? How does Buddhism react to Christianity in the globalised world of the 20th century? What is the difference between animal and human life and what effect does this have on the theory of religion? We will address these questions with the help of some of the most influential philosophical texts from the last 200 years to see how these help us to understand the question of religion in the contemporary world.
• Uniwide Language
  • You can add a foreign language to your portfolio of skills. Enhance your employability by learning French, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Modern Standard Arabic or Spanish alongside your main degree. Whatever your language knowledge, from beginner to advanced, these classes will take you to the next level of proficiency.

Study and Assessment

• Year 1 30% lectures, seminars or similar; 70% independent study
• Year 2 30% lectures, seminars or similar; 70% independent study
• Year 3 100% placement/overseas study (optional)
• Year 4 25% lectures, seminars or similar; 75% independent study
• Year 1 90% coursework; 10% examination
• Year 2 90% coursework; 10% examination
• Year 3 100% placement/overseas study (optional)
• Year 4 100% coursework

Entry Requirements

• Typical offer 104-112 UCAS tariff points
• IELTS score 6.0 overall with no component below 5.5, taken within two years of course start date
• UK students
  • Level 3 qualifications 104-112 UCAS tariff points.
  • GCE A levels - grades BCC or equivalent
  • Pearson BTEC National Extended Diploma - grade DMM
  • Access to HE Diploma - Pass overall with a minimum 106 UCAS Tariff points
  • UAL Level 3 Extended Diploma - grade of Merit overall
  • OCR Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma - grade DMM
  • T level - We welcome applications from students undertaking T level qualifications. Eligible applicants will be asked to achieve a minimum overall grade of Merit as a condition of offer
  • IB Diploma - Pass overall with a minimum overall score of 26 or minimum 104 UCAS Tariff points from three Higher Level subjects
• International students
  • IB Diploma IB Diploma with minimum 26 points overall or 104 UCAS Tariff points from three Higher Level subjects. If you plan to meet the Level 2 course requirements through your IB Diploma you will need to achieve Higher Level 4 or Standard Level 5 in English
  • IELTS 6.0 overall with no component below 5.5, taken within two years of course start date

Fees and Funding

Tuition fees for the 2026/27 academic year are still being finalised for all courses.

Careers Support and Prospects

• Employed or in further study 88.7% of our UK-domiciled, full-time, first degree graduates are employed or in further study 15 months after graduation.
• Explore your options and build sought-after skills Through our Careers Service, you will be supported and encouraged to get ready for further study or working life, including starting your own business.
• Earn while you learn Find campus work that fits around your studies and pays a living wage through Jobs4Students.
• Find your perfect placement Get a head start in the job market with meaningful work experience through a placement.
• Build skills for your future Explore new experiences, discover your passions and become career-ready, life-ready and future-ready.

A Career as Unique as You

Our state-of-the-art curriculum is designed to significantly enhance your employability. Studying philosophy enables you to develop and perfect much sought-after digital, analytical, and communication skills, opening up a very wide array of career options for you. Some of our recent graduates have found careers in primary and secondary school teaching, law, the fast-track civil service scheme, academia, the intelligence services, media work, film, and publishing.

There is also the opportunity to engage in further study and professional training, for example some of our graduates go on to study MA Philosophy, which focuses on a rich and varied tradition of philosophical theory across Anglo-American and the continental European traditions.