BA (Hons) Philosophy and Politics

About

Our Philosophy and Politics degree is designed to allow you to engage equally with both disciplines or to swing the degree slightly more to one or the other subject. You have a wide choice of modules in each. 

Furthermore, you won’t just study each subject separately; you will also be invited to bring them together. The philosophy experts at UEA are particularly engaged in issues that relate to the future of our planet – and to future generations. Alongside the Western intellectual and cultural heritage, from the Ancient Greeks to the great works of modern political thought in the West, you’ll be invited to take a module in world philosophies that covers an array of thinkers from the Middle East and Asia. The philosophy of literature, cinema and art is also an area of philosophical focus here. 

Then, with our experts in political theory, you’ll study democracy’s philosophical underpinnings, the clash between different world views, and the philosophical basis of utopian political systems. 

Taught by academic leaders in their fields, you’ll be able to choose from a range of fascinating historical and contemporary areas in both philosophy and in politics, including international relations. You’ll come to understand why philosophy is so central to politics – and why all politicians should have a better grasp of it. After all, politicians and commentators are often let down by sloppy thinking, their inability to detect and deflect the shoddy rhetoric of the interviewers, or their simple misunderstandings of basic distinctions: traps that someone who had studied philosophy wouldn’t fall into. 

By year 2, you’ll be ready to decide which aspects of philosophy and politics you want to pursue further, depending on your interests and talents. You can take either equal numbers of modules in each subject or weight it a little in one direction or the other. You will take one compulsory keystone module, Philosophy of History and Politics for Second Years, which will invite you to combine the skills, methods and concepts from philosophy and politics. If this proves interesting to you, you can choose to follow it up with the complementary module in the following year, Philosophy of History and Politics for Third Years. 

In your final year, you’ll also have the opportunity to take research-led special subject modules or to write a dissertation on a topic of your own choosing.