Undergraduate Module Descriptor

PHL2025A: Philosophical Readings 4

This module descriptor refers to the 2018/9 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 Skills	1. 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 texts approach from different perspectives;
Discipline-Specific Skills	4. 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 Skills	7. 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.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics in the work of Jürgen Habermas:

1. The critical theory of the public sphere
2. The early theory of cognitive interests as the basis of an anthropological epistemology.
3. The idea of a universal pragmatics.
4. The reconstruction of historical materialism
5. The theory of communicative action
6. The critical theory of system and lifeworld.
7. The idea of discourse ethics.
8. Habermas’s model of deliberative democracy
9. The idea of a post-metaphysical philosophy
10. The idea of a post-secular society
11. Habermas’s critique of post-modernism.

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
22	128	0

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning and Teaching activity	22	11 x 2 hour weekly seminars
Guided Independent Study	44	Reading and preparation for weekly seminar analysis and discussion on the core texts
Guided Independent Study	36	Preparation for Assigned Essays
Guided Independent Study	48	Reading materials to supplement and contextualise the core texts

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).