UWE, Bristol invites applications for its MA in European Philosophy (1 year full-time or 2-years part-time).
Students enroll on fiveM-Level modules (see below)and are required to write a 15,000-word dissertation. Emphasis is placed on close interaction and collaboration between students and staff. Masters teaching is conducted in small, informal seminar and tutorial groups. There is an excellent staff-student ratio and all students receive a great deal of individual guidance and supervision.
UWE Philosophy is a branch of the Royal Institute of Philosophy and holds an annual graduate conference organized by our MA students. Past topics have included ‘phenomenology’ (2010-11) and ‘the self’ (2011-12).
UWE Philosophy also hosts a series of talks sponsored by the Royal Institute of Philosophy on a different theme each year. These events form an additional component of the MA programme. The theme in 2011-12 is ‘Medicine and Society’. MA students are also encouraged to participate in the department’s work in progress and research seminars.
The thriving student-run Philosophy Society also invites speakers and hosts events throughout the year, including weekly socials. Bristol benefits from being a lively student city with many cultural activities.
For more information or to apply contact darian.meacham@uwe.ac.uk or admissions@uwe.ac.uk
Apply directly at: http://courses.uwe.ac.uk/V59012/2012#about
MA Modules
Kant’s Critical Philosophy
The main aim of this module is to offer an in-depth reading of Kant’s Third Critique – the Critique of Judgment. Kant is, by near universal agreement, the philosopher who has had the greatest impact on modern European philosophy. He synthesized the thought of many who wrote before him and nearly all philosophy after him is in some way a response to his work. The Third Critique is a particularly important text for a range of later philosophers, including, Fichte, Schelling and Kierkegaard. In this module, we read carefully through the whole text, first covering the analytic of the Beautiful and the analytic of the sublime. We then examine the detailed accounts of teleological causation in the second half of the work. Particular emphasis is given to the question of why Kant labeled teleological judgments 'reflective'judgments. We also look at recent discussions of autopoesis and compare these with Kant's discussion of living organisms.
The Post-Kantian Tradition
Core text: G.W.F. Hegel, The Difference between Fichte’s and Schelling’s System of Philosophy, trans. Walter Cerf and H.S. Harris (Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1977)
Although Hegel’s first published work, and simply a survey of,as he puts it, ‘the forms occurring in contemporary philosophy’, the Difference essay provides unparalleled access not merely to German Idealism, but also to a moment at which his, Fichte’s and Schelling’s audacious philosophical systems were in the process of being realised. It is both a document of its philosophical times and of a philosophical creativity unseen in Europe since ancient Greece. This module explores the problems of nature, freedom and reason bequeathed to Hegel by Kant, and which Hegel, his contemporaries and ours, set out to resolve under three different rubrics: (1) ‘nature’ is a product of our cognitive freedom (Fichte); (2) cognition is a product of the nature of which we are part (Schelling); (3) nature and freedom are objects of reason (Hegel). The module inquires not only how these solutions are contemporarily adopted, but also asks after the source of the philosophical creativity so extraordinarily exemplified by the post-Kantian tradition.
Phenomenology
This seminar traces the development of a central concept in the phenomenological tradition from its pre-phenomenological development through to its full blossoming in the phenomenological movement of the twentieth century. In 2010-11 the seminar examined the development of the concept of ‘Umwelt’ or surrounding world in Jakob von Uexküll, Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. In 2011-12 the topic is ‘effort and will’. We will read texts by Maine de Biran, Felix Ravaisson, and Paul Ricoeur. In examining the development of these ideas we also bring into focus the concepts and styles of thinking that bind together the various strands of phenomenology. In 2012-13 the topic of the seminar will be ‘intersubjectivity and the body’.
Contemporary French Philosophy
This course explores some important currents in 20th century French philosophy. We take texts from Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze as typical of the late development of this tradition. We examine the influences of Marx, Nietzsche, structuralism, and psychoanalysis on these thinkers. We also investigate their relationship to Kant and post-Kantian thought in general – including the relation to phenomenology.The French epistemologial traditon is also an infrequently acknowledged yet formative influence on Foucault's philosophy. We explore what difference it makes to our understanding of late twentieth century and early twenty-first century French thought if we take this epistemological undercurrent as foundational. In this context, we examine a number of texts by Georges Canguilhem.
Research in Philosophy
This module focuses on key research and writing skills. Students are given the opportunity to present dissertation topics, and then to discuss and assess their research progress with peers and tutors over the course of the year. The module also introduces students to some practical aspects of studying and preparing for a career in philosophy, including applying for PhD programmes and funding in the UK and abroad. Workshops are also given by people who work in philosophy related careers outside the university. The module incorporates a ‘journal club’ where students share views on what are best practices in academic writing.
Staff research expertise
Alison Assiter: Kant, Critical Philosophy, Kierkegaard, Feminist Philosophy, Political Philosophy (critiques of liberal philosophy, Althusser)
Havi Carel: Philosophy of Medicine, Phenomenology, Phenomenology of illness, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Psychoanalysis, Death, Film and Philosophy
Iain Hamilton Grant: German Idealism (Fichte, Hegel, Schelling), British Idealism, Speculative Realism, History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, Philosophy of Nature
Michael Lewis: Phenomenology, Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, Psychoanalysis, Environmental/ecological thought, Philosophy of Technology, Philosophical Anthropology. In general, the relation between the empirical sciences and transcendental philosophy.
Darian Meacham: Phenomenology (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger), Bioethics and Biopolitics, Philosophy of the Body, Political Philosophy (democratic sovereignty, post and trans-national democracy, liberalism)
John Sellars:History of Philosophy (antiquity to the seventeenth century), Stoicism and the reception of Stoicism in the 16th and 17th centuries (Justus Lipsius and Ralph Cudworth)
Sean Watson: Foucault, Deleuze, French Epistemology (Bachelard, Cavaillès, Canguilhem), Neurophilosophy, Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Life
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