BAEcon Economics and Philosophy

This course concerns key topics in the theory of knowledge (or epistemology, as it is known) and in metaphysics (the study of reality at its most general).

The topics in epistemology concern such questions as: What is knowledge? Can we know anything through the use of reason alone? What is it for our beliefs to be justified? What is the scope of our knowledge?

The topics in metaphysics concern such questions as: Are races social constructions? What is it for one event to cause another? What is it to be a person? What makes you now the same person as you were ten years ago? Do we have free will? 

The unit aims to:

• Introduce some of the central problems of metaphysics and epistemology
• Introduce some of the central positions, theories, and arguments in metaphysics and epistemology
• Introduce some of the central modal, epistemic and logical concepts in metaphysics and epistemology, such as: necessity, possibility, contingency, a priori knowledge, a posteriori knowledge, necessary and sufficient conditions, etc.

One two-hour lecture and one one-hour tutorial per week.

Students should be able to:

• Explain key concepts, positions, and arguments in some key areas of metaphysics and epistemology;
• Relate concepts, positions, and arguments in metaphysics and epistemology to each other.

Students should be able to:

• Identify and evaluate concepts, positions, and arguments that have been presented to them both orally (in class) and in texts (in readings);
• Develop and defend original stances and arguments concerning philosophical problems encountered in lectures and readings;
• Present arguments in clearly written essays.

Students should be able to:

• Conduct effective independent online and library-based research in the preparation of assessments on epistemology and metaphysics;
• Communicate complex epistemological and metaphysical ideas clearly in written language.

Essay (1500 words) 50%

Exam (1.5 hours) 50%

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 time 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 Canvas; and obtaining feedback from your peers during tutorials.

• Adina Roskies. (2006). Neuroscientific challenges to free will and responsibility. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10(9), 419–423. 
• David Braddon-Mitchell & Kristie Miller. (2004). How to Be a Conventional Person. The Monist, 87(4), 457–474. 
• Charles Mills. (1998). “But What Are You Really?” The Metaphysics of Race. In Mills, Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race. Cornell University Press
• Christopher Bartel. (2015). The Metaphysics of Mash‐Ups. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 73(3), 297-308
• Jennifer Lackey. (2008). A Critique of Reductionism and Non‐Reductionism. In Lackey, Learning from words: testimony as a source of knowledge. Oxford University Press.
• Laura Gow. (2014). Colour. Philosophy Compass, 9(11), 803–813.
• Paul Oghenovo Irikefe. (2020). A fresh look at the expertise reply to the variation problem. Philosophical Psychology, 33(6), 840–867. 
• Sally Haslanger. (1999). What Knowledge Is and What It Ought to Be: Feminist Values and Normative Epistemology. Philosophical Perspectives 13, 459–480.
• Sarah McGrath. (2005). Causation by Omission: A Dilemma. Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 123(1/2), 125¬–148. 
• Shannon Brick. (2020). Epistemic Neglect. Social Epistemology, 34(5), 490–500.
• Xiaoqiang Han. (2009). Interpreting the Butterfly Dream. Asian Philosophy, 19(1), 1–9. 

Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2027 will be £10,050 per annum. Tuition fees for international students will be £33,100 per annum.

For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.

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).

We know that student finance can be complicated. The links below provide further information to help guide you.

Learn more about student finance options for UK students.

Learn more about fees and finance for international students.

As an international student you may be eligible for our Global Futures Scholarships . This is open to students starting their studies in September 2026