PER4023 - Introduction to Philosophy

Objectives:

Assessment tasks are designed to enable students to demonstrate the Learning and Employability outcomes for the relevant level of study. Level Learning Outcomes are embedded in the assessment task(s) at that level. This enables a more integrated view of overall student performance at each level.

Content:

This module covers selected topics in Western and Eastern philosophy. Potential topics will include ethics, value theory, political philosophy, aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and so on. The distinction between Western and Eastern, and within Western between continental and analytic philosophy will be discussed. The module introduces fundamental questions and concepts in philosophy, and the developing critical tradition that reflects upon the formulation of these questions and problems as an essential path to answering them. Example questions might include things like, what does it mean to say that we ‘know’ something, rather than merely believing it? What are the different ways things can exist? How ought we to run our society and state? What makes art ‘art’? Does God exist? And much more besides!
This module develops ideas and frameworks that will be picked up in PER5013 Mind, Self and World.

Learning and Teaching Information:

Sessions will be run in an interactive manner in order to facilitate open dialogue between students and lecturer, as well as among students themselves, and therefore there is not a strict separation between lecture and seminar.

You will be taught using LTU’s multimodal approach to teaching. Your learning will be divided into three stages:

Preparation: You will be given clear tasks to support you in preparing for live, in-person teaching. This may include watching a short, pre-recorded lecture (or other open educational resource), reading a paper or text chapter, finding resources to discuss with your peers in class, reading and commenting on a paper or preparing other material for use in class. Your Module Tutor will give you information to help you understand why you are completing an activity and how this will be built on during live, in-person teaching.

Live: All your live, in-person teaching will be designed around active learning, providing you with valuable opportunities to build on preparation tasks and interact with staff and peers, as well as helping you to deepen your understanding, apply knowledge and surface any misunderstandings.

Post: Follow-up activities will include clear opportunities for you to check understanding and apply your learning to a new situation or context. These activities will also be a source of feedback for staff that will inform subsequent sessions.

Lectures/Seminars
Hours: 48
Intended Group Size: 30

Guided independent study
Hours: 252

Further details relating to assessment
Portfolio: Students will complete FOUR 500-word critical summaries in the first half of the year. Each will be on one of the readings assigned in the first half of the module. Each summary should clearly and concisely state the main thesis and argument in the relevant reading; it should also provide (at least) one critical reflection on that reading.

Essay: Students will complete a 2000-word essay on a question of their choice. Question options will be distributed at mid-term (with the possibility of negotiating a unique question, for those who wish to write on something not included in the list provided). Students will be expected to make an argument for the answer to the question chosen. They should draw on at least one text from the module and on at least one source from their own independent research.

Integrated Assessment: students create a PowerPoint presentation on a theme agreed by the programme team relevant to the areas of philosophy, ethics and religion.

Assessment:

001 Portfolio; 2,000 words; late semester 1/early semester 2 40%
002 Essay; 2,000 words; end of semester 2 40%
003 Integrated assessment; presentation; 5 min; end of semester 2 20%

Fact File

Module Coordinator - Richard Playford
Level - 4
Credit Value - 30
Pre-Requisites - NONE
Semester(s) Offered - 4YL

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