Undergraduate Module Descriptor

PHL1007: Philosophical Reading 1

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.

Module Aims

In this module you will learn and practise the most important basic skill for philosophy students, namely to read a philosophical text. Close reading is crucial for philosophical analysis, understanding and interpretation.

Because of the nature of this module, its syllabus varies from year to year, depending on the text(s) selected.

This year it will be Plato’s Republic.

This will be a foundation module for the SH degree programme in Philosophy, and for the modular degree pathway in philosophy. It will also be available to students from other schools and departments as an optional course in philosophy. This course will familiarise the student with the fundamental techniques required to read, understand, criticize, a philosophical text. It will proceed by in-depth reading and analysis of one or more philosophical texts. Given the introductory nature of this module, we will focus on texts that require no specific background philosophical knowledge and combine high philosophical quality with historical relevance and clarity of presentation.

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 analysis of a text, and reasoning about abstract matters
Discipline-Specific Skills	2. analyse arguments, understand the historical and social context of production of a philosophical text, criticise it, and write well-argued essays.
Personal and Key Skills	3. construct and evaluate arguments, to formulate and express ideas at different levels of abstraction, to assess and criticise the views of others.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Because of the nature of this module, its syllabus varies from year to year, depending on the text(s) selected.

This year it will be Plato’s Republic.

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
27	123	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 Activities	22 hours	11 x two hour seminars
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	5 hours	Two essay writing workshops and a revision session
Guided independent study	123 hours	Independent study

Online Resources

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

ELE - http://vle.exeter.ac.uk/