Bachelor of Arts (BA)

BA Philosophy and Religion

Engage with broad philosophical thinking along with religious traditions and beliefs on an interdisciplinary course.

  • Duration: 3 years
  • Year of entry: 2025
  • UCAS course code: VV35 / Institution code: M20

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Fees and funding

Fees

Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2025 will be £9,535 per annum (subject to Parliamentary approval). Tuition fees for international students will be £26,500 per annum. For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.

Policy on additional costs

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

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Course unit details:
Existentialism

Course unit fact file
Unit code PHIL23001
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 2
Teaching period(s) Semester 1
Available as a free choice unit? Yes

Overview

Existentialism is an approach to philosophical questions that can be found in the writings of Nineteenth Century authors such as Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, and Nietzsche, and more explicitly in Twentieth Century Philosophers Heidegger, Sartre, and de Beauvoir. Existentialist thought focuses on the meaning—for our individual lives—of lived experience, value, freedom, responsibility, and commitment, and is often associated with an ethics of authenticity. In this unit we will consider a selection of writings by these authors, looking at how existentialist ideas have been represented in both philosophy and literature.

Aims

The unit aims to:

  • introduce students to the philosophical writings of Nineteenth & Twentieth Century existentialists;
  • present the historical, philosophical, and literary context in which existentialism was developed;
  • explore in detail some central concepts of existentialism: meaning, value, lived experience, authenticity, mortality, etc;
  • show how existentialism relates to issues in ethics, epistemology and the philosophy of mind.  

Teaching and learning methods

There will be a mixture of lectures and tutorials.

Please note the information in scheduled activity hours are only a guidance and may change.

 

 

Knowledge and understanding

  • identify the main philosophical questions arising in a variety of texts by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Fanon
  • clearly articulate existentialist philosophical claims

 

Intellectual skills

  • evaluate the claims and arguments of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Fanon
  • relate existentialist philosophy to other areas of philosophical inquiry
  • evaluate existentialist philosophy's lasting significance

 

Practical skills

  • interpret and criticise both primary and secondary texts 

Transferable skills and personal qualities

  • undertake independent research and apply theoretical knowledge to complex issues 

Assessment methods

Method Weight
Other 50%
Written exam 50%

Essay 1   50%

Essay 2   50%

Feedback methods

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.

Recommended reading

Reading list: 

The following reading list is indicative, and students are not required to read all of the publications listed.                                                                                               

Smith, Joel. 2022. Existentialism: A Philosophical Inquiry. London: Routledge 

 

Webber, Jonathan. 2018. Rethinking Existentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

 

Dreyfus, Hubert L. and Mark A. Wrathall (eds.). 2006. A Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism. Oxford: Blackwell. 

 

Daigle, Christine. 2010. Jean-Paul Sartre. London: Routledge. 

 

Arp, Kristina. 2001. The Bonds of Freedom: Simone de Beauvoir’s Existentialist Ethics. La Salle, IL: Open Court.

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 22
Tutorials 10
Independent study hours
Independent study 168

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Joel Smith Unit coordinator

Additional notes

Tutorial preparation 10 x 5 hours = 50 hours

Essay 1 preparation 59 hours

Essay 2 preparation 59 hours

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