Module code: SAC3008-B
You will develop an understanding of the core philosophical concepts, methods and the historical contexts in which they developed.
This module will span the broad intellectual landscape of the Western tradition of thought, beginning in the ancient Athens of Socrates and Plato, torn by the ravages of the Peloponnesian War, and culminating in the twentieth century of Jean-Paul Sartre. This latter era was equally riven by bloody wars fought over competing ideologies. The social and political ideal established by Plato in response to the problems of his time will be traced to its eighteenth-century successor, the Enlightenment, whose clash with romanticism towards the end of that century profoundly altered the way in which we view the world. This clash has helped to shape the problems of our own time. It is with some of the most pressing of these problems, such as the potentially explosive tensions between competing values, and the revolutionary potential of new technologies, that we shall be engaging throughout this module.
Download the PDF for Western Philosophy and the History of Ideas