What’s it all about?
Since the earliest beginnings of history, human societies have tried to answer fundamental questions, asking why we are here, where we go after we die, and how we should behave in between. Billions of people around the world have found at least some of the answers in religious faith, but philosophers and other great thinkers continue to ask and answer the same questions to this day. Modern technology makes an ethical and philosophical understanding of the world more important than ever, with DNA editing, brain-machine interfaces and advanced prosthetics challenging us to reconsider what it means to be human.
What skills will I need to be successful?
Philosophical and ethical theories can be extremely complicated, and students will need excellent abstract and theoretical thinking skills. It is also important to be able to refer to specific scholars and philosophers when answering exam questions, and so a good memory and an organised approach to note-taking are very useful.
Where can it take me in the future?
Philosophy translates from Greek as “love of wisdom”, and as such students of philosophy are well-equipped for a huge range of future study. The transferable skill of being able to think deeply about complex theoretical concepts applies well to a huge range of careers across almost any discipline. The ethical frameworks offered by the course are a great preparation for careers involving working with vulnerable people, such as social care, psychology or medicine.
