Philosophy – (B.A.)

The aim of the department is threefold: (i) by exploring influential philosophical arguments and ways of arguing, the department intends to impart upon the students the intellectual resources to discern lines of thought and courses of action that are defensible as opposed to ill-considered; (ii) the department aims to foster background capabilities---self-reliance, judging well when decision-making, creativity in problem-solving, adaptability, argumentative acumen and so forth---that complement and are essential to the good use of vocational skills; (iii) by investigating abstract problems and arguments in depth and by adopting an analytic stance the department aims to provide students with a solid platform from which to pursue graduate studies in philosophy.

The curriculum is broad based in that the students are required to complete courses in a number of academic fields other than philosophy, i.e., physics, biology, computers, mathematics, statistics, economics, languages, literature, and history. Because the curriculum provides each student with a substantive grounding in these fields, the student is able to constructively challenge the way they are practiced from a position of authority rather than from a position of hearsay. Besides, several of the courses (e.g. languages, statistics, computer programming, etc.) aim to develop specific skills that are essential to the workplace. In the meantime, the philosophy courses on their own provide a more than sufficient basis from which to pursue graduate work in philosophy. As a result, the critical mass of philosophical understanding is established whilst at the same time each student's future career options are not foreclosed due to unnecessary over-specialization at an early stage.

The department places a premium upon: (i) discussion-based class work, encouraging the students to be actively part of the learning experience; (ii) essay-based assessment (complemented by a drafting process and a series of essay tutorials); (iii) tutorials and ongoing feedback; (iv) trusting the students to come to terms with the original texts, rather than asking them to work from watered-down commentaries on those texts; (v) the development of each student's ability to pursue independent research (culminating in the fourth year where a thesis is completed on a chosen topic under the supervision of a faculty member).