BA World Philosophies

This module provides first-year students with the necessary skills to evaluate philosophical texts and effectively present philosophical analysis. Working with brief, self- contained arguments extracted from philosophical texts from a variety of traditions, students will learn strategies for isolating the main idea of an argument (its conclusion) and for clearly demonstrating an argument’s structure.

This module is designed to introduce students to philosophy as a human discipline, to provide a critique of the hegemonic understanding of philosophy, and to engage with core issues, debates and challenges that the acknowledgement and discourse of philosophy as a global discipline .can lead to The module will introduce students to some key debates, methodological challenges, and major themes that have emerged since the deliberate or non-deliberate recognition of non-Western philosophies beyond the predominant European philosophy in global academia. Some of the debates to be examined include the place of place and the inter in philosophy, the universality and particularities of philosophy, and the problem of accent and the superiority contest among philosophical traditions. The question of method is also examined focussing on such topics as dialogue, comparison, self-critique and language. The module also critically engages with several philosophical traditions by analysing the defining features of a philosophical tradition such as textuality and individual authorship, the gender problem in historicizing philosophy, and non-conventional forms of philosophy such as music as philosophy and street philosophy. The module also offers ways in which students can approach practical and theoretical philosophical issues such as bioethical issues, gender issues, and epistemological issues by drawing comparatively from several traditions of philosophy. Thus, this module will prepare students for topics and thematic issues they will encounter in other modules throughout the programme.   

This module is designed as a stimulating introduction to the basic concepts of formal logic and to various methods of argument analysis and evaluation. The objective of the module is to equip students with the necessary intellectual tools to understand and engage critically with philosophical texts, as well as to write and reason in an ordered and rigorous way. You will learn about rudimentary logical concepts such as inference, deduction and induction, validity, and soundness, and apply such knowledge in your engagement with a range of philosophical texts produced in the Global North and in the Global South.

This module examines approaches to a number of metaphysical questions from both Global North and Global South traditions. Students will critically approach metaphysical arguments in a comparative way, emphasising the permeable, cross-cultural way of thinking about topics such as personhood, the nature of gender, and the relationship between normativity and nature.

This module is designed to introduce you to the intellectual discourse of morality and ethics from various philosophical traditions and perspectives.

‘Comparative Ethics’ is designed to provide a decolonised moral theory curriculum that compares, contrasts, and examines approaches to moral philosophy from a global perspective. The module, specifically, focuses on important Global South and Global North discourses about normative, meta-, and applied ethics.

Of all the disciplines within the humanities, Philosophy has been one of the most reluctant to confront its own history of racism and the support that it has lent to racist practices and structures. This module will provide an introduction to the key questions, debates and challenges to current philosophical thinking on race and the opportunities for reform and revision offered by critical race, decolonial, and Black thought. We will begin by establishing key terms and the questions raised by the historical development and contemporary practices of the discipline, particularly focusing on processes of canon formation and the racism of canonical philosophers, as well as the marginalisation of non-European thought from its conceptual priorities and lexicon. The second half of the module foregrounds the challenges and opportunities offered by critical race and decolonial theory and Black thought to the discipline of Philosophy.

The module begins by developing the central tasks of epistemology which include the formulation and analysis of theories and sources of knowledge, and the analysis of related concepts such as justification, belief, opinion and truth. It also examines the politics of epistemology which consists of the masculinisation and colonisation of the epistemology agenda evident in mainstream epistemology and how the emergence of alternative epistemologies in the last century or so has advanced the feminisation and decolonisation of the epistemology agenda. The module also examines various theories of knowledge in the various philosophical traditions such as Socratic, Cartesian, and Kantian epistemology from the West, communitarian epistemology from Africa, and the Pramana epistemology in India.

The aim of this module is to provide students with an engaging intellectual treatment of Global and Transnational Feminisms. The specific focus is on Islamic, Chinese, South Asian, and Latinx feminist perspectives - four deeply important branches of feminist thought that are rarely centred either in mainstream Global North Anglo-American or Continental European undergraduate philosophy programmes or more critically-minded Global North undergraduate philosophy programmes. Students will not just learn about transformational and radical thinkers such as Leila Ahmed, Aysha Hidayatullah, He-Yin Zhen, María Lugones, Sonia Alvarez, Savitribai Phule, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, and Uma Narayan. Students will also see how feminist theory and feminist praxis mutually support one another, nourishing, and shaping radical and more inclusive feminist movements in both the Global North and the Global South. This module, crucially, philosophies feminism from a global and decolonial perspective, equipping students with an array of sophisticated and discursive tools for applying philosophical insights from Islamic, Chinese, South Asian, and Latinx feminism to a range of historical and contemporary social and political case-studies.

This module examines the nature, theories, key themes and debates in philosophical hermeneutics from different philosophical traditions. The module applies philosophical theories of interpretation to global issues and lived experiences of, for example, race, alterity, gender, and health. This module is designed to provide a global, comparative, and decolonial approach to philosophical theories of interpretation. Far too often, the philosophy of, and philosophy as, interpretation has been conceived, approached, and taught in several university curricula from a purely western, Anglo-European perspective. This eurocentric attitude excludes African philosophies, Buddhist philosophies, and Islamic philosophies, and in doing so deprives students of having richer, multi-cultural, multi-geolocational philosophical treatments of hermeneutics.

The philosophy of language is the branch of philosophical inquiry concerned with questions related to the nature, use and limits of language as a medium between language-users and between them and the world.

Do words merely describe non-linguistic things in the world, or does language have more to do with expressing intentions, vulnerabilities, and the like? This module looks at a range of Anglo-American, critical theoretic, and African takes on language - with particular attention devoted to language's interrelations with a range of power dynamics.

Students will learn how these various perspectives stand in conversation with each other, how the analysis of language has been linked to and conditioned by metaphysical commitments, and how language's imbrication with power buttresses different self-understandings of the aim of philosophical discussion.

This module explores the origin, development and diversity of Buddhist philosophical thought. It examines Buddhist philosophical ideas, such as the nature of reality, the position of the individual within the wider ontological framework, idealist trends, epistemology, and logic. Each philosophical issue treated by Buddhist thinkers is carefully framed through the study of Buddhist doctrinal tenets and the broader intellectual environment within which Buddhist masters sought to establish themselves. In doing so, this module contextualises Buddhist philosophical thinking within the wider Asian cultural traditions. While much of the course focuses on philosophical issues, it also explores the institutions within which these ideas were developed.

This module will examine the historical development of African philosophy focusing on the two key periods or phases: the precolonial period and the postcolonial period of African philosophy as well as the key approaches and trends within these periods.

It will also examine the primary concerns and key themes in African metaphysics, African epistemology and African ethics. The module will also explore some other aspects of African philosophy such as African political philosophy, African existentialism, African feminism, African philosophy of difference and disability.

This module introduces students to the major aspects of contemporary Middle Eastern fiction from the 20th and 21st century through the theme of race, gender and resistance. It will look at how resistance is expressed in relation to violence, freedom and humour in the fictional world and expressions of where resistance has failed. It will introduce students to postcolonial studies to anchor contemporary critical race and gender critique within literary studies. It will also engage with freedom-fighting narratives as well as intersectional identities of resistance where race, class and gender (among others) come together.

The overall aim of the course is to introduce students to Zoroastrianism - its doctrines, rituals and observances within a historical framework. The teachings of the religion will be discussed on the basis of the Zoroastrian sacred text, in particular the Avesta and Pahlavi literature, in the context of the Indo-Iranian religious system from which the religion emerged. The history of Zoroastrianism will be traced from its prehistoric roots in Indo-Iranian times through its development under the rule of three great Iranian empires, Achaemenian, Parthian and Sasanian, its gradual development into a minority religion after the Muslim conquest of Iran, the subsequent migration and re-settlement of a diaspora community in India, and from there up to the present day.

The aim of this course is to provide students with an overview of the principal philosophical questions and perspectives that emerged in ancient India and shaped philosophical and religious debates throughout Indian history, such as origin and building blocks of the universe, ways of knowing, the nature of existence, self and God, causality, action and its consequences, limits of morality, paths of salvation.

The course challenges narrow western representations of Indian philosophy as per se spiritualistic and focuses on the competition and consequences of key ideas, individual philosophers and schools of thought in historical context.

The course focuses on early Vedic texts such as the ?gVeda and the Upani?ads and on the literature of later Brahmanical schools of Sa?khya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaise?ika and Vedanta, and the schools of the Lokayatas, Jainas and Ajivikas, which, like those of the Buddhists, present themselves as non-Vedic. The course culminates in a comparison of competing doxographic approaches, philosophies of philosophy, and the Jaina philosophy of non-one-sidedness, and concludes with a comparison of the teachings of three key individual thinkers of classical Indian philosophy, Nagarjuna, Kundakunda and Sa?kara.

The purpose of the course is to analyse different representations of the Holocaust in 20th and 21st century theology, literature, film, and art. The impossibility of adequately expressing the horrors and atrocities of the Holocaust stands in contrast to the need to transmit knowledge about the Holocaust to later generations. How and to what extent is it legitimate to write fiction and poetry about the Holocaust, to address the Holocaust in art, and to make movies about it which are non-documentary and sometimes even have the form of comedy?

This course will discuss the many different ways in which Jews have expressed their ethnic, cultural, and religious identity historically from antiquity to modern times. Jewish identity formation and expression needs to be explored within the context of the respective historical, political, social, and economic circumstances in which Jews lived. For the respective time periods under discussion here, the various forms of acculturation and assimilation to surrounding societies and cultures will be examined. Even the more traditional religiously defined forms of Judaism functioned within and in reaction to the non-Jewish cultures Jews had contact with. We shall analyse the significance of ethnicity, nationalism, culture and religion in the definitions of Jewishness and trace developments in the expression of Jewish identity. Our approach is primarily historical and sociological. For some subject areas literary criticism and gender studies approaches will be employed.

This module offers an introductory intellectual history of Islam with especial focus on the different religio-philosophical strands that constitute Muslim worldviews. It will introduce students to the academic, particularly historical study of Islamic thought. The module will start with outlining the emergence and early development of Islam within its wider historical context, will introduce its principal textual sources and doctrines, and will then turn to major religio-philosophical disciplines, such as theology, jurisprudence and philosophy, and to some of the diverse schools of thought and movements that developed in Muslim societies. Attention will be given to the plurality of interpretations of textual sources attested among these schools of thought and to the interplay between religious texts and reasoning in various religious and intellectual contexts

This module introduces students to central concepts of the Zoroastrian world view. Using primary and secondary sources, the students will engage with the debate on the interpretation of the sources and the scholarly debate. Topics covered include Zoroastrian concepts of dualism, monotheism, Good and Evil, cosmology and eschatology.

This course will explore the deconstruction and reconstruction of philosophy from ‘the margins’, primarily examining epistemological arguments about the nature and form of knowledge, truth, subjectivity, and power (and their intersections) from perspectives traditionally marginalised by mainstream philosophy.

The ISP in World Philosophies enables students to develop specialised knowledge in an approved topic or theme in World Philosophies. The project is intended to enable students to engage in an extended piece of independent research on a topic of their choosing under the guidance of an academic supervisor.

This module explores ideas developed by the most influential systems of East Asia Buddhism, with specific attention to Japan. It will interrogate the ontological, epistemological and logical positions of the Tendai, Zen and Tantric traditions, considering the discrete terminology through which each school articulates its signification of reality, as well as the concerns and interpretations they shared.

This module focuses on aspects of the intellectual history of the medieval Islamic world, above all the history of philosophy and systematic theology. It will examine various thinkers and schools of thought of the classical and post-classical periods, including Aristotelianism, Mu‘tazilism and Ash‘arism, and will introduce key concepts, problems and debates, particularly in metaphysics, natural philosophy, epistemology, ethics and anthropology. These topics will be approached analytically, situated and interpreted within their broader contexts, and read through representative primary texts in translation. Attention will be given to contemporary scholarly methodologies and debates in the field.

There are multiple ways of thinking about resistance. Simply writing about oneself and the space one is not allowed to occupy can be a mode of resistance. Writing about past or present oppression, stirring protest, and imagining alternative futures can also be read as resistance. Cultures of resistance makes us think about what literature, film and other media seeks to do and the silences or censorship it challenges. It directs our attention to forms of injustice, but also to its mode of address, and to its intended and non-intended audiences, as well as it effects. Through narrative, poetic technique, political inclination, subject matter and authorial position, texts highlights the often intersectional dynamics of everyday living and the power structures that shape it. The module will examine an array of examples and forms of cultural texts from South Asia, and may include anticolonial, Dalit, feminist and LGBTQ narratives, political satire in prose, poetry, film, drama, dance and other such forms. 

This course is an introduction to Avestan, the language of the earliest Zoroastrian texts. It is designed to provide students with a clear understanding of the basic principles of the Avestan language in a way that enables them to translate simple Avestan texts and to analyse their grammar. Students who complete the course successfully will be able to handle simple primary sources of the Zoroastrian religion in the original Avestan language.

This module introduces students to the major aspects of the Zoroastrian philosophy emerging from textual sources of ancient Iran, late antiquity and the modern period such as Good and Evil, the creation of the world and death. We will engage with critical aspects of epistemology, ethics, metaphysics and ontology that the field of Zoroastrian studies offers to the discipline of Philosophy. This module proposes a community-engaged learning that entails the participation of 'living Zoroastrians' in our seminars.

The ISP in World Philosophies enables students to develop specialised knowledge in an approved topic or theme in World Philosophies. The project is intended to enable students to engage in an extended piece of independent research on a topic of their choosing under the guidance of an academic supervisor.

This module integrates perspectives from our department’s three fields–history, religions, and philosophies–and beyond, to take an interdisciplinary critical approach to questions on ‘Political Islam.’ Grounded in historical chronology, and balancing geographical specificity with a transregional view, it begins by problematizing the categories of ‘religion’ and ‘politics’. At the same time it shows how these, and other, conceptual categories emerged across various sociopolitical settings from the early modern period to now.

This module explores the impact of modernity, colonialism and Orientalism on the representation and framing of Indian Brahmanical (Hindu") and Buddhist thought in the modern period. The modern exclusion of Indian thought from the category of "Philosophy" will be explored through a range of theoretical and postcolonial approaches, examining the formation of "Hinduism" and "Buddhism" as "world religions" and the role that taken for granted concepts such as religion, mysticism and spirituality have played in the normalisation of a Eurocentric framing of South Asian intellectual traditions and identities in the late colonial/modern era. "

The module explores different attitudes towards death, dying and the meaning of life in contemporary cultural, religious and philosophical traditions. It starts from the recognition that in many cultures death is not seen as the end of life, but as a starting point to inquire about what life means. As Robert Hertz (1907) has pointed out in his classical study, it is an episode in a journey which integrates life and death. 

Death and death rituals are central concerns of most cultural and religious systems. Their specific interpretations across cultures are intrinsically connected with prevalent conceptions of the self, the person, the body, and with definitions of life, including visions of the good life, which are transmitted through ritual and (oral) literature. Students will explore notions of meaningful life and good death through an introduction to the main theoretical debates in religious studies on the topics of voluntary death, sacrifice, rites of mourning, as well as ancestor worship, the idea of the self, and the quest for immortality. 

This module is intended to complement modules on individual religious and philosophical traditions in the Department of History, Religions and Philosophies. It will also be of interest for students interested in religions and politics and cultural aspects of medicine.