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HUP243
Philosophy of the Enlightenment
This module explores key philosophical ideas as they developed through the age of the Enlightenment. The primary aim is to introduce students to major Enlightenment philosophers in order to see how their theories reflected and contributed to the social and intellectual developments of the time. This will also reveal how their ideas shaped, and to continue to shape, Western philosophy and society more generally. We will examine debates about, among other things, the nature of truth, knowledge, reality, God and the self. The philosophers addressed include Descartes, Locke, Hume and Kant. We will also consider critiques of the Enlightenment, including romantic, feminist and critical race perspectives.
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HUP243A
Philosophy of the Enlightenment
This module explores key philosophical ideas as they developed through the age of the Enlightenment. The primary aim is to introduce students to major Enlightenment philosophers in order to see how their theories reflected and contributed to the social and intellectual developments of the time. This will also reveal how their ideas shaped, and to continue to shape, Western philosophy and society more generally. We will examine debates about, among other things, the nature of truth, knowledge, reality, God and the self. The philosophers addressed include Descartes, Locke, Hume and Kant. We will also consider critiques of the Enlightenment, including romantic, feminist and critical race perspectives.
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HUP319
Reality and Cognition: Topics in Metaphysics and Epistemology
This module equips students with contemporary philosophical concepts and methods for thinking deeply about the nature of reality, and our capacity to make cognitive contact with it. It then invites them to apply these to topics of philosophical concern, including: the metaphysics of time; the metaphysics of gender; the metaphysics of disability; epistemic injustice; the metaphysics of virtual worlds; and the epistemology and metaphysics of science and mathematics.
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POLM02
Methodology in the Social Sciences
I'm no prophet. My job is making windows where there were once walls.
Michel Foucault
This module gives you the tools to think like a social researcher. The syllabus starts by building an understanding of the various underlying ontological and epistemological ideas that animate the world of social research. Getting to grips with these ideas allows you to speak and think in terms that professional social researchers use every day. The tools, frameworks, practices and experiences provided in Methodology in the Social Sciences are designed to induct you into the practice of making sense of society through research as an MA or MSc student.
Our principal focus across the module is applied social research methodology. You¿ll explore how good research questions are built and refined in practice¿through sessions led by experienced researchers from academic staff research groups in Swansea University¿s School of Social Sciences. The module will help you to see research from the inside¿understanding the thinking behind it, and the debates that shape it. This will elevate your critical engagement with the work of other scholars and set you on the path to finding your voice as a social researcher.
By the end of the module, you will have developed an original research question based on your research interests and developed your approach to this question in the form of a structured research proposal. You will have presented your ideas to teaching staff and peers, and received feedback that will help you refine your research plans. The research proposal assignment is designed to support your dissertation work. Many students choose to use their research proposal as the jumping off point for their MA Dissertation project, and the topics chosen for the exercise are used to help assign Dissertation Supervisors with relevant research interests[HE
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POLM17
Dissertation
Throughout your MA course, you¿ve been developing towards this point ¿ the dissertation. You are emerging scholars with fresh insights and depths of knowledge, and this is the time to put these to work and produce an original contribution to the field that you can be proud of.
Over the late spring and Summer, with the extensive support of a supervisor expert in your area (and building on your existing methodology modules), you¿ll scope out, design, and conduct an independent project of study on a topic of your choosing, pursuing the questions that motivate your interest in the subject. You might be poring over declassified intelligence agency archives looking for evidence of complicity in mass violence, charting the everyday politics of energy and logistics that (quite literally) keeps the lights on, or answering the big questions about where we¿re going in an increasingly precarious twenty-first century ¿ this is a chance for you to truly spread your wings and research what interests you.
Between this extended project, and the accompanying presentation of your findings, this represents the culmination of your studies, building on all the modules you¿ve studied and skills you¿ve gathered. This is a great opportunity to develop detailed knowledge of a particular field, hone competencies that will make you a skilled researcher and policy advocate in the real world, give you skills managing a major research project.
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POY1112
Fundamental Issues in Philosophy
In this module, you will have the opportunity to engage with the core issues of philosophy, specifically issues in metaphysics and epistemology. You will grapple with questions such as whether reality extends beyond the physical, what place the mind has in the world, whether we have free will, and whether God exists. In doing so, you will gain an understanding of the subject matter of philosophy, familiarise yourself with influential methods that philosophers have used to interrogate this subject matter, and engage in dialogue with some of philosophy¿s most influential thinkers .
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POY1114
Critical Reasoning
You will learn the core skills and methods at the heart of philosophy. You will gain the concepts required to identify, analyse, and evaluate the various forms of persuasion, including both explicit arguments and rhetorical speech, allowing you to identify flaws in reasoning and attempts to manipulate. You will also have the opportunity to hone the technical skills required to reconstruct a line of reasoning rigorously and evaluate it for various purposes.
