Philosophy

Please see the course planner for information regarding prerequisites.

HUMPHI11 and HUMPHI12 lead to all level 2 Philosophy courses. It is important to note that the HUMPHI11 is the cornerstone of the Philosophy track. Without it, students may find the level 2 courses too difficult.

Note also that the HUMREL11 (Religion) does not give access to the HUMPHI21 and the HUMPHI23, but only to the HUMREL24. All level 2 philosophy courses and the HUMREL24 give access to the senior seminars: HUMPHI33/34/35/36. Note that the HUMPHI25 and the HUMREL24 are offered in alternating years. Note further that although the REL24 has a Religion code, it serves as the ethics course for the Philosophy track, and as such gives access to all seminars. The ‘cross listing’ below merely serves to attract attention to the course in the Philosophy curriculum.

As the levels of our students vary considerably, it may be that a student can do without the HUMPHI11, or without the 21 or the 23 in order to enter the 3X courses. Here, permission can be asked for from the instructors.

The HUMPHI12 is a course that deals more with non-Western philosophy. It gives access to the HUMPHI21, HUMPHI25 and HUMPHI23, but for students without a background, it is highly recommended that they read selections from the textbook of the HUMPHI11 as preparation. This will never be much, as the HUMPHI12 already contains many of these texts too.

The SCIHIS11 deals with the history and philosophy of science, and although it has a ‘history code’ it really belongs in between history, science and philosophy. It is a good course to take for adding context to philosophy and science.

The ideal Philosophy track is HUMPHI11/HUMPHI12 followed by HUMPHI21, HUMPHI23 and Senior Seminars.

It is advisable to take at least two level-3 courses. The seminar changes topic every time it is taught. This allows our students to take it four times (hence the quadruple code) and take full advantage of the limited offerings at University College Utrecht. The seminar will always deal with a theme or author in much more depth than the level 2 courses. The seminars have loosely been organized to reflect the system of the complete track: Historical, Theoretical, and Practical philosophy. The seminars will often contain one or more of these concentrations within philosophy. So, if there is a seminar on Kant, it is historical, but also theoretical (given the nature of the texts), and if Kant’s ethics is read, then it is also practical in nature. Past topics in the seminar have included: Spinoza, Postmodernism and its critics, Wittgenstein, Rorty, recognition (Honneth), Eastern and Western metaphysics, the philosophy of Donald Davidson, Aristotle, the philosophy of artificial intelligence, Foucault, and aesthetics.

Scheduling

The programme is flexible, but it is ideal to take the HUMPHI11 or the HUMPHI12 in the first year, the HUMPHI21 in the Fall of the second year and the HUMPHI23 in the Spring (or start then with a level 3). For those students who plan to continue in Philosophy, we recommend that they take the HUMPHI11 and/or the HUMPHI12 as a basis, maybe even complemented with the SSCPOL11 Political Theory course.

It is certainly the case that within professional philosophy there are many detailed and technical debates, the fine points of which will often elude the casual observer. In this sense, Philosophy is like most other academic disciplines: highly specialised. But philosophy does distinguish itself from most other disciplines in that there is a philosophy of everything. There is philosophy of biology, of language, of mind, of literature, of mathematics, of science, of logic, of religion, of law, of psychology, and ethics in all its guises, and social philosophy, and political philosophy, to name but a selection. 

It is exactly because of this remarkable connectedness of Philosophy to all other disciplines that it is so well suited to Liberal Arts and Sciences students. Philosophy allows a student of multiple disciplines to step back from the specialised work within those disciplines and contemplate the place and role of these disciplines in the larger academic and worldly context. It allows the student to look at the disciplines, rather than merely through them.

In addition to this general intellectual use for philosophy, a second reason to study the discipline is that it teaches many practical skills: critical reading and writing, general analytical and reasoning skills, to name a few. Many of these skills are eminently transferable to other academic or professional disciplines (think of law, medical ethics, or politics, but also advertising and consultancy).

Naturally, we intend to prepare our students so that they can enter a Master's program. There are two considerations here. The first one is getting the student in, and the second one is making sure that the student is equipped to perform well in the program. In part, these two considerations overlap.

Getting In

Master's programmes will generally publish their requirements. Many schools will ask for about 60 ECTS in Philosophy or very closely related disciplines. A common University College Utrecht curriculum in Philosophy tends to consist of a full track (e.g.: HUMPHI11 (or PHI12), HUMPHI21, HUMPHI33) and some extra courses at level 2 and 3 (e.g.: HUMPHI23, HUMPHI34). In addition, it is, of course, recommended that the student write his/her thesis in Philosophy (HUMRES32). Together this amounts to 52,5 ECTS. Although always a good idea, it is not necessary to complete the ECTS requirements by taking one more straight Philosophy course. Related courses will do very well too. So now the student can choose to take courses like SSCPOL11 (Political Theory), HUMREL23 (Religion in the Public Domain) or SCIHIS11 (History and Philosophy of Science).

Performing Well

Although the requirements for entry vary between schools, in the past the above selection of courses in Philosophy has allowed our students to be very successful, especially in taught programmes.

We have recommended the taught, one-year Master's programmes rather than the research Master's because the Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum at University College Utrecht limits the number of taught courses in Philosophy in comparison to straight Philosophy programs in, for example, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. But our students also do very well in two-year research Master's with one taught year. In the past students have entered King’s College London, London School of Economics, Durham University, University of Warwick, University of Amsterdam, Leiden University, Utrecht University, New School, University of Sussex, University of Edinburgh, Radboud University Nijmegen, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The University of Chicago, University of Gottingen, SOAS, University Hertfordshire, University of St. Andrews, University of Oxford etc.