Putting Philosophy into Practice: updating the Philosophy MA programme

Our revamped English-language Philosophy Master's programme Philosophy in Practice opens for admissions in January 2025. The updated programme has been designed to teach philosophy in a way that supports both academic and non-academic career paths. 

Why the change? 

The curriculum development was led by the former Head of Programme, Associate Professor of Philosophy of Language, Alexander Davies. He, and the team of lecturers who will teach the updated curriculum, have designed the curriculum to make salient why and how justifiable solutions to the sorts of challenges facing the world today (climate change, aging populations, technological automation, pushes to return us to a multipolar world) require defensible answers to philosophical questions. “The programme still prepares students for doctoral studies if that’s what they want to do, but it now also works much harder to support students who want to pursue alternative career paths. The idea was to offer a philosophy MA that allows students with an interest in philosophy to train in the discipline without thereby needing to commit in their studies to a single and purely academic career,” adds Davies. 

Who is the curriculum open to? 

The curriculum is open to international students who hold or are completing their undergraduate degree—be that a degree in philosophy or in another discipline. 

What was changed? 

The reformed curriculum includes 12 new courses: three in the Start Module and nine in the Philosophy in Application Module. These courses replace the individual work that dominated the previous curriculum. 

The Start Module (24 ECTS) takes place entirely in the first Autumn semester. It is designed to ensure that incoming students’ shared background-knowledge, critical communication and argumentation skills meet a common standard by the end of the first semester. Completion of this module is a prerequisite for the courses in the Philosophy in Application Module. 

The Philosophy in Application Module (36 ECTS) brings master’s students from different years together into the same courses in the Spring semester. This module offers courses such as 'Political Philosophy and Global Challenges,' 'Well-being, Health, and Medicine,' and 'Applied Epistemology: Misbelief and What to Do About It.' These courses don’t teach philosophy in abstraction, but instead in application to challenges facing the world today. 

Within the Diversification Module (30 ECTS), students can choose to extend their philosophical training by taking further philosophy courses from the Philosophy in Application module, or instead to acquire complementary skills from other disciplines: for instance, by taking courses in data analysis, new media and society, and social memory. 

The Practice Placement Module (6 ECTS) and the Research Project Module (18 ECTS) are sites where students put what they have learnt in the Philosophy in Application Module and the Diversification Module to work. The Practice Placement Module supports students in finding internship opportunities, which are thematically derived from the courses in the Philosophy in Application Module. The module thereby enables students to draw strong connections between their studies and potential future workplaces. The Research Project Module is where students conduct their own research project—a site where they can combine the skills acquired from their studies to break new ground on a research question of their choice.  

Our international learning environment allows students to meet peers from different countries and cultures and if desired, students can enrich their studies with exchange programmes and internships abroad."