Critically engage with questions and debates about our socially connected lives and the ways in which we interact and act on the world through language and communication, individually and as a society, to shape knowledge and reality. In this module you will gain the skills and insight to ask questions which change each year but may include:

• How does communication work in our individual and collective lives?

• How might certain kinds of communication bring about ethical and political change (for example, by making something permissible or changing the boundaries of acceptable political discourse)?

• Are lying and other kinds of deception permissible, and if so, when and for whom?

• What does freedom of speech really mean, and how might duties and rights differ in this space for citizens, for the press, for politicians, for academics, and on social media?

• How can collective knowledge practices exclude or harm, do we have duties to address these problems, and what might work to do so?

• What is the nature and appropriate regulation of propaganda and hate speech?

• What are the ways in which patterns of attention and exclusion or inclusion in who we listen to and develop knowledge with may have ethical and political implications?

• What communicative protest and speech acts are legitimate in a democratic state?

You will leave this module with a better understanding of how practices of knowledge creation and participation, and of language and communication, may actively shape and determine the boundaries of our world, and with the skills to critically examine these forces in action across the media, social media, politics and society.

Understand the human ability to produce and organise the smallest building blocks of language as you study the fundamental principles of spoken communication. From the movements used to express speech and the properties of sound travelling through the air to how sounds are processed in the brain, this module investigates how language is spoken.

You will learn to describe and produce sounds of speech from around the world and to use and critique models such as the International Phonetic Alphabet. You will explore the whole range of human vocal skills – such as clicks in isiXhosa – and discover how humans have adapted language to communicate across long distances – as in whistled languages. You will also study phonology and units of communication in sign languages, which challenge foundational principles of linguistics.

By the end of this module, you will have the knowledge and skills that are essential for work as a speech therapist, teacher or audiologist. You will also acquire transferable skills relevant for careers in speech technology and analytics.

What do the world’s languages have in common and what sets them apart from each other? In this module, you’ll explore this fundamental question in linguistics and grammar and be introduced to the field of linguistic typology, which aims to describe and explain the (dis)similarities between languages around the world.

Through hands-on exercises, you will develop the skills needed to analyse unknown languages and come to see familiar concepts such as 'subject’ and ‘passive’ in a new light. You will also learn about new phenomena, such as ‘antipassives’ and ‘tripartite alignment’.

Focussing on much more than just grammatical analysis, this module will help you understand why languages work the way they do. You will find that the answers lie in the nature of communication, in the way humans think about reality and more. By the end of the module, even your own language(s) will no longer feel as ‘normal’ as before.

Explore how philosophical thinking can tackle real-world problems, from personal dilemmas to global challenges, by linking abstract ideas to concrete decisions.

In this module you will engage with an applied philosophical challenge, using your philosophical skills to provide compelling reasons in favour of your solution. Through production of a short podcast or in-person presentation, you will also develop your ability to engage in philosophical argumentation beyond the written word. And along the way, you’ll gain the tools to think clearly, act responsibly, and engage thoughtfully with the complex world around you.

Specific topics studied each year draw on Lancaster’s wide range of applied expertise and may include:

• Ethics and regulation in traditional and social media, in the era of mass global communication and impact

• Bioethical topics such as euthanasia, rationing, ageism, research ethics and public health ethics

• Health and illness, the concept of mental health, and the role of lay or patient knowledge versus medical expertise

• Ethics in professional and organisational life, including divisions of roles, decent work, unpaid and care work, the rights and duties of corporations and employers and codes of ethics

• Study of different scientific methods and their limitations

Throughout this module you will learn about topics in applied philosophy, while developing and practicing some of the many transferable skills that Philosophy graduates bring to a wide range of professional roles, such as critical problem solving, political and ethical reasoning, the clear identification of problems, and the art of communicating potential solutions to diverse audiences.

Discover language in relation to Artificial Intelligence and other technology. In this module, you will learn about the ideas that power language-related technologies such as:

• Translation technologies
• Speech recognition systems
• Generative AI and much more

You'll think creatively about how these technologies could be used in new ways. You’ll also tune in to important discussions around ethics and responsible tech development.

Without the need for prior programming experience, this module will set you up with technical skills including coding and script writing. These skills will help you test how different language technologies work with both written and spoken language, whilst setting you up for a future career in computational linguistics.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a new approach to philosophy began to emerge that questioned and interrogated the inherited western philosophical tradition from Plato to Kant. This new approach was later described as ‘continental’ philosophy.

In this module, you will discover some of the key thinkers from this continental tradition of philosophy. The particular philosophers will vary from year to year, but will include pioneering thinkers who have been particularly influential on later continental philosophers (for example, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein) as well as more recent continental thinkers themselves (for example, Lyotard, Derrida, Levinas, Badiou, Žižek, Foucault, Arendt and Beauvoir). While engaging with their thoughts, we will consider difficult and enduring questions such as:

• What is the relationship between history and truth?

• How does subjective experience relate to universal truth?

• What is the significance of gender and embodiment in philosophical reflection?

• What is the role of language and discourse in philosophical claims?

• How might we conceive of the relationship between power and freedom?

On completion of this module, you will be able to understand and interpret the central arguments made by these thinkers and to assess their distinctive claims, methods and approaches and their continuing significance for philosophy and for how we ought to structure our societies and lives.

In an era shaped by data and revolutionary technologies, understanding how language reflects and creates societal trends is extremely important. This module introduces corpus linguistics as a powerful way of analysing vast amounts of language data to uncover meaningful patterns.

You will experience a hands-on introduction to language analysis using specialised computer software, suitable for students with no prior experience. You’ll learn the fundamentals of corpus linguistics, including essential tools and statistical techniques for robust social science research. You will also explore how large-scale language data can uncover insights into communication patterns and cultural trends. Applying these skills to real-world challenges, you will address topics such as social inequality and healthcare and explore areas such as language learning and politeness strategies.

Emphasising practical learning through real-world case studies and hands-on tasks working with authentic language data, this module will help you develop analytical skills that are highly sought after in the private and public sector.

Explore how language is used to interact with others, form social groups and shape society. In this module, you will examine how communication functions socially, from the persuasive language used by politicians and advertisers to the way social organisation is reflected in and reinforced through casual conversations among friends.

You’ll draw on different models in linguistics to explore the way language is used and organised to achieve social goals. This includes:

• Using principles of systemic functional grammar to identify who is represented in texts and how,
• Conversation analysis to uncover the structure and management of conversation
• Methods of visual analysis to consider non-linguistic meanings

By the end of this module, you will become more confident in analysing texts and understanding their functions. You will see everyday texts, such as a phone call with a family member or a letter from your GP, in different light because you will understand the features and structures of language that help to organise society.

As children learn language, they produce creative utterances. They say things like ‘we goed to the zoo’. They understand sentences they have never heard before, such as ‘the bunny is meeking the mouse’. Remarkably, they will eventually learn to say ‘we went to the zoo’ without any explicit language lessons. They will also acquire additional languages in their home and communities with ease. In this module, you will explore these incredible abilities from different theoretical perspectives.

You’ll explore two main theories about how we learn language: the nativist theory, suggesting we’re born with a special ability just for language, and the usage-based theory, suggesting we learn it through everyday thinking and experience.

You will consider different conditions under which children learn multiple languages at home and outside it. You will discover what social and cognitive factors contribute to the development of their language skills.

Throughout the module, you will explore other important topics including:

• Language development in deaf and bilingual children
• Second language acquisition
• Developmental disorders affecting language

How many advertisements have you already seen today? From moving billboards to advertisements between games on your phone - advertising is everywhere.

How many advertisements have you already seen today? From moving billboards to advertisements between games on your phone, advertising is everywhere.

In this module, you will learn how advertisers use language, visuals, sound and music to influence behaviour. You will discover how to differentiate advertising from marketing by examining hard and soft selling, influencer advertising and the role of “prosumers” on social media. You will explore consumer research to ask what makes a good advertisement. Rich examples show how advertising has borrowed from prose, poems and plays.

You will explore aspects of language including:

• Phonetics (sounds in a language)
• Stylistics (linguistic analysis of literary texts)
• Pragmatics (meaning in context)

By the end of this module, you will be able to analyse the creative use of language in advertisements, understanding the role that advertising plays in wider marketing efforts and reflecting on its uses in your future professional and personal lives.

Learning requires language. That makes pedagogic practice language work, and the design of talk and text a crucial dimension of a professional educator's practice.

You will explore talk between teachers and students to better understand what makes for effective classrooms. You will analyse genres that students read and write, and how teachers unpack densely organised information to provide students access and control. You will consider how digital technologies, multilingualism and the growing influence of visual communication can inform teaching. You will work with authentic classroom data while examining what current research says about language and teaching.

By the end of this module, you will have newfound insights into the complex ways in which talk, text and image shape processes of meaning-making in educational settings. Although our primary focus is on the classroom, the insights we provide are equally valuable in any setting where people gather to learn and collaborate.

What does it take to have a mind? How does science work? Does human reason equip us to understand the external world? In this module we explore the nature of consciousness and reality, and the methods by which we understand them, focussing on key debates in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of science.

In the first part of the module, you will explore what it takes to have a mind, examining and critiquing some of the wide range of answers philosophers have offered to this intractable problem. Questions you will investigate include:

• What is the relationship between the mind and the brain?

• How do animal minds or artificial intelligence fit into our understanding of thought and consciousness?

• Can science ever provide us with a full understanding of how consciousness is possible?

The second part of the module turns to the nature of science itself. Modern science is often regarded as our most reliable guide to reality, but what justifies this status? In investigating the nature of science, you will learn about some of the most influential twentieth-century accounts of scientific method and theory-testing. Questions you will address include:

• How does science differ from non-science?

• Is there a scientific method?

• Should we believe in unobservable entities posited by scientific theories, such as quarks or superstrings?

• What are limits of scientific and rational inquiry?

Through wrestling with debates about the nature of consciousness, science, and the extent to which we can understand reality you will leave this module equipped with a greater understanding of some of the most difficult and enduring challenges in philosophy: what it is to be human, to have sentience, and how should we understand the vast body of scientific knowledge that shapes our collective world?

Global and local political and economic affairs raise complicated philosophical issues. While political theory and philosophy often focus on normative questions – such as the nature of justice, freedom, or legitimacy – this module centres on the epistemological and methodological challenges that underpin our understanding of political and economic life. These challenges are no less important for how we think about contemporary societies and the difficulties they face and are, as you will discover, closely connected to more normative questions.

Concepts such as democracy or autocracy, money, taxation and national debt, power and economic growth – all are complex and contested:

• They raise metaphysical questions: what sorts of ‘things’ are they?

• They pose epistemological challenges: how can we know or measure them? Is it possible to study them without making assumptions about values?

• They provoke broader considerations: how do large-scale political and economic phenomena relate to individual people and their activities?

Through considering these questions on this module, you will gain an understanding of the special challenges involved in knowledge of our social, political and economic systems, and how philosophical thinking complements the tasks of political science and economics.

Create a portfolio of investigative and critical writing which explores a particular philosophical topic in depth.

In this module you will be guided with expert support from Lancaster philosophers to develop your philosophical and independent study skills. Through deep engagement with a specific topic you will develop your ability to assess philosophical arguments and make independent judgements, informed by reasoning and evidence. You will engage with a text, problem, figure or body of work chosen by an academic within the philosophy team at Lancaster who is a specialist on the topic and work with their expert support, in groups and independently.

Project topics offered each year will be drawn from one or more of Lancaster’s many areas of expertise, such as:

• Global philosophy
• Comparative philosophy
• Ethics
• Metaphysics
• Political philosophy
• Applied philosophy
• Social ontology and epistemology
• Philosophy of science
• Philosophy of mind
• The history of philosophy
• Feminist philosophy
• Continental philosophy
• Aesthetics

Completion of this module will equip you with the skills and knowledge you need for further independent writing in your final year of study.

Soon, you will find yourself in a professional job in a company, school, charity, medical centre, local government or other place of employment. Although very different, such organisations are all held together by language – the language of meetings, client or investor interactions, team leadership and/or crisis management.

You will explore linguistic concepts such as (im)politeness, narrative, and metaphor and consider their implications for multilingual communication and using English as a lingua franca. You will develop your knowledge of how professional communication is organised and how language is used to both reflect and influence wider discourses. The module distinguishes between professional communication and business/workplace language and includes attention to difficult professional communication such as delivering bad news and responding to bullying.

By the end of the module, you will be able to read and assess studies of professional communication, drawing on a range of linguistic approaches and using frameworks to analyse real-life data.

In your third year you will study at one of our international partner universities. This will help you to expand your global outlook and professional network, as well as developing your cultural and personal skills. It is also an opportunity to gain a different perspective on your subject through studying it in another country.

You will choose specialist modules relating to your degree and potentially modules from other subjects offered by the host university that are specific to that university and country.

The availability of places at overseas partners varies each year. In previous years destinations for students in the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences have included Australia, USA, Canada, Europe and Asia.

Now one of the most important paradigms in contemporary linguistics, this module introduces you to principles of Cognitive Linguistics and the alternative view of language it presents compared to other approaches.

You will explore the cognitive structures and processes that underpin language, including radial categories, frames, image schemas and mappings. You will learn how these things relate to aspects of language like word meaning, grammatical structure and metaphor. You will also explore the idea that much more of language than just idioms is stored in the mind in whole chunks.

Cognitive Linguistics is largely theoretical. However, you will learn how it has recently integrated methods from psycholinguistics and gesture studies as well as how it is applied to social contexts like politics, health and more.

Explore competing approaches to phonology as you discover how the most prominent phonological theories have developed.

You will explore the linguistic debates that have caused great controversy in the study of phonology over the past century, whilst also examining the important question of whether phonology is best understood as formal logic – akin to philosophy – or as a cognitive system grounded in psychological reality.

Throughout the module, you will engage with essential topics in linguistics, such as sound change, phonological variation in accents, and models of bilingualism and second language acquisition. Via these topics, you will explore exciting questions such as ‘what is the connection between sound systems and the mind?’, ‘is language learning innate?’ and ‘what happens when we develop more than one sound system?’

Politics is one of the most widespread and diverse phenomena of human experience. Yet it is often studied by relying on concepts, theoretical resources, and methodological approaches derived from a single intellectual tradition. This module seeks to reverse this trend by introducing you to global philosophical perspectives emanating from different intellectual traditions on a particular topic.

The philosophical traditions with which we engage will vary from year to year, but may include Chinese, Continental, Analytic, African, Feminist, Postcolonial, and/or Decolonial perspectives. The topics that we look at will also change but may include one or more of the following:

• Democracy

• Modernity

• Secularism

• Pluralism

• Rights

• Political legitimacy

We will consider how the theme(s) we focus on has or have been construed in different settings, and we will inquire into how these different construals can help us achieve a better understanding of today’s sociopolitical landscape, while also providing new perspectives on how to tackle some of the most pressing political problems of our times.

In addition to learning about different philosophical traditions, you will also reflect on the challenges of studying philosophy comparatively and engaging with philosophical traditions that derive from different cultural settings, developing a broader critical understanding of political community and life.

Can we determine whether someone is lying from their voice or words? Can we identify the sender of anonymous threatening messages? Can we tell whether a call to a bank is a real customer or an AI-generated fraud? This module offers the opportunity to answer these questions and understand how linguistic expertise is applied in intelligence, evidential and judicial contexts.

You will review the fields’ history and development and have your studies brought to life through court cases and practical case studies. Through this, you will be able to see the use and status of linguistic evidence in intelligence gathering, police investigations and in the courtroom.

Throughout the module, you will engage in questions such as ‘who created this linguistic sample and is it authentic?’, which will help you develop the practical skills necessary to critically evaluate different methods and approaches.

Our media environment is constantly changing and has never been more diverse. The way different media approach events or issues - i.e. the language they use to describe and discuss them - varies enormously. Consequently, there are important theoretical and methodological challenges involved in making sense of this environment.

In this module, you’ll examine social and broadcast media in their changing forms to consider how each contributes to our current media ecology. You will apply frameworks including discursive news values, corpus linguistics, framing analysis and multimodal discourse analysis which are useful in future media careers and as a citizen.

Throughout, you will explore media talk, ideology in news selection and presentation, fake news and mis/disinformation.

How is language connected to who we are, how we see ourselves, and how others see us? This module explores the idea of identity and how it relates to language.

You’ll investigate how accents and other language varieties are perceived in society and how they can reflect or reinforce social identities and inequalities. You’ll also explore areas such as language and gender and learn how identity shows up in the way we speak and write.

You will also look at how people choose to use language in different contexts, in multilingual England and beyond, and the reasons behind this, as well as why people choose to learn new languages. Throughout the module, you’ll think about how these issues are shaped by and help shape power and inequality.

By the end of the module, you’ll have gained useful skills in critical thinking as well as a deeper understanding of how language works in the real world.

Explore present-day English to discover how it varies and how it has evolved, within and beyond its heartland. This module will deepen your insight into the English language by examining the (socio)linguistic dimensions along which it varies and the (extra)linguistic processes that have changed it over time.

From Old English to the present and from British dialects to emerging World Englishes, you will explore how variation in English is driven by factors such as gender and class and how it has been shaped by contact with other languages. You will discover how cultural shifts have changed the way English is used and consider whether we can make predictions about its future.

You will be introduced to key research in variationist and historical linguistics. The module will also encourage you to apply these insights to new data and to undertake data collection yourself.

Have you ever wondered what the world looks like in other languages? Or what connects language, cognition, culture and ecology? These are the fundamental questions addressed in this module, which explores the latest developments in language-related cognitive science.

You’ll explore what all human languages have in common, as well as how they can differ, and how language, thought, culture, and the environment are linked. You’ll also look at how we communicate using sign and gesture and think about how language forms connect to meaning.

As you continue through the module, you will consider how things like space, time, colour and numbers are talked and thought about in different cultures. With a strong focus on anthropology, you’ll explore the language and culture of several Indigenous communities, such as those living in Papua New Guinea. To help unlock the evolution of language, you’ll also explore culture and communication in non-human populations including chimpanzees and ancestral homo species.

The module emphasises experimental methods. You will work in groups to design, implement and present the results of a language experiment. Together, you will gain an enriched understanding of the linguistic and cognitive diversity of humankind.

Would you like to learn more about a specific topic in Linguistics or English language? Would you like to research and work independently on a study that matters to you? The final-year dissertation module provides this opportunity.

With support from a supervisor, you’ll build on what you’ve learned in previous modules and carry out your own research project. You’ll gain valuable skills in designing a study, asking research questions, and collecting and analysing data.

This module is especially useful if you’re thinking about postgraduate study or a career in research. It’s also a great opportunity to focus on topics relevant to future careers, such as language teaching or speech and language therapy. You'll also develop your ability to work independently and grow as a writer and learner.

From music, film, and television to sports, fashion, and digital media, explore how cultural texts raise philosophical questions about identity, morality, power, and meaning, and examine how popular culture both reflects and shapes the way we understand ourselves and the world around us. In this module you will look at how philosophers have understood the production, circulation and reception of popular culture, and how it bears on our own autonomy, agency, power, and identity.

You will study themes which may include:

• Philosophical approaches to mass culture, cultural value, art, and aesthetic judgement

• Authorship, mass production, genre, kitsch, remix, and the ontology of reproducible artworks

• Identities, stereotypes, cultural appropriation, objectification, and other political issues in regard to popular culture and mainstream media

• The Frankfurt School on the culture industry and the critique of popular music

• Pragmatist, analytic and continental arguments for the aesthetic and social value of popular music, film, television and other forms

• Philosophical analysis of selected cultural artefacts as case studies – songs, films, novels, and visual art

In studying this module, you will gain an understanding of how philosophy provides tools for interpreting the stories we collectively tell and consume – and how those stories, in turn, influence our sense of self and the very fabric of the societies and world we inhabit.

Interconnected global crises and states of ‘polycrises’ or ‘wicked problems’ impact upon the daily lives of millions of people across the globe. Environmental, financial, security, diplomatic, political and military concerns all pose acute problems of knowledge and understanding, require individual and collective action, and raise questions around duties and rights for addressing multi-faceted complex problems.

Philosophical reasoning can play a key role in helping individuals, politicians, states and societies navigate these challenges, and in shaping and critiquing the principles for taking action. In this module you will actively work on developing your own philosophical contributions to addressing global crises, studying topics which may include:

• Themes from social epistemology, including the difficulty of creating shared knowledge in the face of societal challenges; institutions for scrutinising as well as disseminating knowledge claims; the need for diverse perspectives on so-called wicked problems, and also the challenges of combining and reconciling these.

• Themes from the philosophy of collective action and metaphysics, including the ways in which human beings can cooperate outside of formal institutions and create new institutions to address societal and international problems, as well as problems of diffuse responsibility amid complex or changing social structures.

• Themes from political philosophy, such as the difficulties and strengths of democratic institutions and the compromises they require; the challenges of reconciliation and institution-building after war and conflict; the challenges democracies face in light of populism, authoritarianism, corruption in the democratic process, and problems of disinformation.

Over the course of this module you will learn how different philosophical approaches can help us to think our way through our own responsibilities in these times, offering different perspectives on the various roles we can play in surviving, and even flourishing, in times of global crisis.

In this module you will develop either a single extended piece or a portfolio of independent philosophical work. This may take the form of either (1) a philosophical dissertation or (2) a communication and engagement portfolio of outward-facing philosophical work targeting a diverse range of audiences.

1) Dissertation

Independent research and sustained long-form writing making up the core of professional academic philosophical study. With the Dissertation option, you have the opportunity to demonstrate your research and writing ability via completion of an independent dissertation project.

You will identify a specific philosophical topic from the wide range of research specialisms within Philosophy at Lancaster and, together with your allocated dissertation supervisor, develop a clear research question. you'll then engage with relevant primary and secondary texts to construct a compelling philosophical argument over a sustained piece of writing.

2) Communication and Engagement Portfolio

From public philosophy articles and podcasts to social media posts, science communications and policy advisory notes, academic philosophers regularly engage with, inform and persuade audiences beyond academia. This requires clear, compelling arguments and an understanding of the target audience.

With the Portfolio option, you will apply the philosophical skills and knowledge gained during your degree to communicate ideas to wider audiences. Working with your supervisor, and choosing from amongst the wide range of philosophical specialisms at Lancaster, you will develop a philosophical claim or perspective on a topic, engage in structured workshops to practice writing and presenting for diverse platforms, discuss your work with peers, and complete a portfolio of public-facing philosophy pieces across multiple media.

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Whichever option you choose, this module is an opportunity for you to complete your undergraduate student journey by demonstrating that you can expand on the knowledge base you have developed through your degree, and use the philosophical skills your programme has helped you develop, to produce your own independent work in philosophy. In doing so, this module will help you demonstrate, and further develop, your advanced research and communication skills, preparing you for both further academic study in philosophy and for professional roles that require skills in research, critical thinking and independent thought.

Language is much more than linguistic structure. Language is the means through which we pursue social goals and the primary means through which we infer the goals of others. This module will explore how our language use impacts our social and institutional identities, our interpersonal relationships and our impact on the perceptions of others.

You will examine how conventions and norms across contexts and cultures drive the way we interact with others and how deviations from expected behaviour can be perceived negatively. Pragmatics is at the core of Cognitive Science and one of the most exciting disciplines driving the technological and social cognition advances of the 21st century.

As you go through the module, you will develop the theoretical and methodological tools to analyse verbal behaviour in politics, intercultural communication, law, AI and more. You will investigate how communicative behaviour changes alongside neuro-cognitive factors; for example, in first language acquisition, across the autistic spectrum or in dementia.

You will learn how our linguistic behaviours mirror evolutionary patterns in our closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos. Human interaction is a fundamental tool for ‘social’ survival and how language use can improve our social gains.

On this module, you will study the psychology of language. You’ll explore how the brain helps us learn languages and how language experience can shape the brain itself.

You will examine what happens when specific brain regions are damaged and how this affects things like semantic vs. syntactic knowledge, memory and inhibition. Throughout the module, you will investigate links between language processing and cognitive and social-cognitive skills while discussing specific topics such as autism, aphasia, Williams Syndrome and bilingualism.

You will learn about neurolinguistic and psycholinguistic methods, including eye-tracking, EEG, and neuroimaging, and discuss appropriate measurement of cognitive and linguistic skills. You will also investigate how empirical data can inform practice in speech and language therapy or diagnosing and supporting children with developmental disorders.

Engage with cutting-edge philosophical research, working with an academic philosopher on the topic of their live philosophical project and expertise. In this module you may be:

• Reviewing and critically commenting on the chapters of a manuscript

• Reading an academic’s recent publications and coming up with further questions and challenges to build on their ideas

• Discussing your module supervisor's new research and it's relevancy to contemporary philosophical debates

In student-led and discussion-based workshops you will present your own summaries and arguments, take part in guided debates, and work on the challenge of your final written piece: a paper which is not only informed by, but may itself eventually inform, current debates within the discipline. In doing so you will be joining the practice, shared by all professional philosophers, of contributing to the understanding and development of the field itself.

The specific question/s you will work on will vary year by year, but will be drawn from the interests and expertise of Lancaster's philosophy staff. They might include, for example:

• What is the best life for a human being

• What do psychiatric diagnoses mean

• What is personhood and what entities can be persons

• How can we respect human autonomy while making public policy

• What can combatant experience teach us about the ethics of war

One or more options will be offered each year.

In studying this module, you will deploy the skills you have developed in the first two years of your degree, gain in-depth knowledge of an important area of contemporary philosophical inquiry, and further sharpen skills in argument and critique – critical skills for both postgraduate study and a range of post-study careers.

Engage with a significant philosophical text or collection of texts, working with an academic philosopher on the topic of their live philosophical project and expertise. In this module you will:

• Read deeply

• Develop interpretations

• Make reasoned assessments

• Find and engage with secondary literature

• Contribute to contemporary understanding and critique of your text(s)

In student-led and discussion-based workshops, you will present your own philosophical interpretations and arguments, take part in guided debates, and work on a portfolio of critical readings. In doing so you will be joining the practice, shared by all professional philosophers, of contributing to the understanding and development of the field itself.

The specific text(s) you will work on will vary year by year, but will be drawn from the interests and expertises of Lancaster philosophy staff. They might include, for example:

• Work by philosophers whose work had, and continues to have, major impact, such as Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill, Hannah Arendt, J. L. Austin, or Iris Marion Young

• Work by significant contemporary philosophers such as Miranda Fricker, Peter Railton, Martha Nussbaum, or David Lewis

• Work from within a specific philosophical tradition, such as classical or modern Chinese philosophy, or work by nineteenth-century women philosophers.

One or more options will be offered each year.

In studying this module, you will deploy the skills you have developed in your first two years of study, gain in-depth knowledge of an important area of philosophy, and further sharpen your skills in reading, interpretation, and thoughtful response – critical skills for both postgraduate study and a range of post-study careers.