Undergraduate Module Descriptor

PHL2025A: Philosophical Readings 4

This module descriptor refers to the 2017/8 academic year.

Module Aims

This module will enable you to be become familiar and conversant with the basic theories and concepts of social philosopher Jürgen Habermas. You will be able to relate Habermas’s views to those of past and contemporary philosophers working in social and political theory, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophical anthropology and cultural theory. The module aims to give you both the tools to critically approach most if not all areas of philosophy and social theory as well as a feeling for a very distinctive style of doing philosophy which is both highly systematic, historically reflective, and widely synthetic in its relation to both philosophy and empirical science.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills1. engage in in-depth study of a text through detailed reading and analysis;
2. develop some understanding of the historical and social context of production of the philosophical book;
3. develop some ability to question/criticise the text’s approach from different perspectives;
Discipline-Specific Skills4. demonstrate the developing ability to analyse philosophical arguments;
5. reason about the abstract and concrete problems addressed in texts;
6. write well-argued essays using appropriate philosophical arguments and language;
Personal and Key Skills7. construct and evaluate arguments;
8. formulate and express ideas at different levels of abstraction; and
9. assess, analyse, discuss, and criticise the views of others.