BASS Social Anthropology and Philosophy

This course introduces the central problems and issues in contemporary philosophy of religion. Among the questions that we will consider are: Are there any persuasive arguments for the existence of God? Is religious belief rational if it is not supported by evidence? Is it reasonable to believe that just one religious tradition is true? There are no prerequisites for the course.

• help you to engage with some of the most central and enduring problems in philosophy of religion
• enhance your power of critical analysis, reasoning and independent thought, and your ability to bring those powers to bear on important philosophical issues
• familiarise you with some of the most interesting and provocative texts in contemporary work on philosophy of religion. 

One 2-hour lecture and one 1-hour tutorial weekly.

Please note the hours in Schedule activity hours is subject to change.

• Understand the principal philosophical problems in contemporary philosophy of religion
• Clearly articulate some of the principal theories discussed in philosophy of religion
• Understand some of the main arguments and distinctions at issue in the philosophy of religion

• Evaluate some of the key ideas and theories in contemporary philosophy of religion
• Relate issues in the philosophy of religion to other areas of philosophical enquiry
• Reflect upon the arguments and analyse the distinctions advanced in debates in the philosophy of religion

• Independently assess and comment on the strengths and weaknesses of arguments
• interpret and understand primary and secondary texts
• Make effective use of library, electronic and online resources. 

• Undertake independent research and apply theoretical knowledge to complex issues
• Gather, sift and synthesise material from spoken, electronic and library resources
• Present complex ideas an argument in an accessible form in writing

The School of Social Sciences (SoSS) is committed to providing timely and appropriate feedback to students on their academic progress and achievement, thereby enabling students to reflect on their progress and plan their academic and skills development effectively. Students are reminded that feedback is necessarily responsive: only when a student has done a certain amount of work and approaches us with it at the appropriate fora is it possible for us to feed back on the student's work. The main forms of feedback on this course are written feedback responses to assessed essays and exam answers.

We also draw your attention to the variety of generic forms of feedback available to you on this as on all SoSS courses. These include: meeting the lecturer/tutor during their office hours; e-mailing questions to the lecturer/tutor; asking questions from the lecturer (before and after lecture); presenting a question on the discussion board on Blackboard; and obtaining feedback from your peers during tutorials.

The texts for the course will be made available online.

The following text is a useful primer:

Graham Oppy, Michael Scott Reading Philosophy of Religion (Blackwell, 2010)