BA Philosophy
Cardiff, United Kingdom
BA
DURATION
3 years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2025
TUITION FEES
GBP 22,700 / per year *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* for overseas | for home: £9,250
Key Summary
How should we live our lives? What should we believe? How should we set about trying to answer these questions? How are we even able to think about them? Philosophy investigates these profound issues and addresses today’s great global questions.
As the world’s oldest academic discipline, Philosophy has developed an impressive range of concepts and techniques for addressing complicated problems. In our degree, we equip you to analyse and construct complex chains of reasoning for yourself, developing and refining your thinking skills to consider the great philosophical puzzles past and present.
We pride ourselves on nurturing a friendly, personalised and supportive environment, placing a strong emphasis on individual one-to-one meetings at key points in each semester. In addition, every member of our academic staff is available for two hours every week in term time for you to drop in and chat about your modules or about philosophy more generally.
Looking outwards to our wider community, we explore the great issues of our time in our weekly research seminar series and our regular public philosophy events in the city centre, produced in association with the Royal Institute of Philosophy. We warmly encourage our undergraduate students to participate in these events throughout the year.
Why Study this Course
Study Abroad
Adventure into a new culture; open your mind to new ideas and experiences in life and learning.
Tailored to You
With primarily optional modules you have the freedom to choose a personalised degree.
Industry Experience
Gain skills, confidence and connections through a variety of cultural internships.
Learn from the Best
Benefit from research-led content; learn from world-renowned Philosophy scholars.
Loans and Grants
Financial support information for students.
Bursaries
We wish to ensure that financial circumstances are not a barrier to your undergraduate study opportunities.
Scholarships
We wish to recruit the very best students and to help us achieve this, we offer a number of scholarships.
Part-time Undergraduate Funding
Information about funding for part-time students.
Financial Support for Asylum Seekers
Information for asylum seekers about the financial support we offer undergraduates and options for funding from outside the University.
This full-time course lasts for three years with two semesters per year. There are 120 credits a year. Most modules are worth 20 credits.
The modules shown are an example of the typical curriculum and will be reviewed prior to the 2024/2025 academic year. The final modules will be published by September 2024.
Year One
You study 120 credits each year of your degree.
In Year One, you take 120 credits of core modules in Philosophy, covering a range of key topics.
Core Modules for Year One
- Mind, Thought and Reality
- Moral and Political Philosophy
- Four Great Works in Philosophy
- Critical Thinking
Optional Modules for Year One
Year Two
You choose 120 credits from a selection of modules, allowing you to focus on your own areas of interest.
Year Two is designed to build on the foundation of Year One through more focused modules that provide an in-depth grounding in the main areas of Philosophy.
Optional Modules for Year Two
- Philosophy of Mind
- Philosophy of Language
- Philosophy of Contemporary Politics
- French Existentialism
- Modern Moral Philosophy
- Contemporary Ethical Theory
- Epistemology
- Beliefs of the Welsh
- What to Believe in the Age of the Internet
- Philosophy of Psychology
- Theorizing and Disintegrating Capitalist Society
- Aesthetics
- Philosophy of Feminism (AUT)
- Philosophy of Feminism (SPR)
- International Study Abroad (60 credits) Spring
Year Three
You choose 120 credits from a selection of modules.
Year Three focuses on the research specialisms of our Staff, enabling you to get a feel for how original research is carried out in Philosophy.
You can also take the opportunity for independent research in the dissertation module if you wish.
Optional Modules for Year Three
- Dissertation in Philosophy
- World-eating justice
- A History of 20th Century Philosophy in Wales
- Belief & Irrationality
- Ethics of Knowing
- Beauty & Ethics
- Moral Responsibility
- A Sense of the Possible
- Paradoxes of Democracy
- Meaning Through Silence
- Aesthetic Injustice
- Sociality Online
- Reasons and Relationships
- The Politics of Language Diversity
- Disruptive Emotions
- Speech Acts Online
How will I be Assessed?
A range of assessment methods are used, including essays, examinations, presentations, portfolios and creative assignments.
Essays and examinations are used not only for assessment purposes but also as a means of developing your capacities to gather, organise, evaluate and deploy relevant information and ideas from a variety of sources in reasoned arguments. Dedicated essay workshops and individual advice enable you to produce your best work, and written feedback on essays feeds forward into future work, enabling you to develop your strengths and address any weaker areas.
The optional final-year dissertation provides you with the opportunity to investigate a specific topic of interest to you in depth and to acquire detailed knowledge about a particular field of study, to use your initiative in the collection and presentation of material and present a clear, cogent argument and draw appropriate conclusions.
What Skills Will I Practise and Develop?
As a result of engaging fully with this course, you will acquire and develop a range of valuable skills, both those which are discipline-specific and more generic ‘employability skills’, which will allow you to:
- Grasp complex issues with confidence
- Ask the right questions about complex texts
- Have an imaginative appreciation of different views and options and analyse these critically
- Identify and apply relevant data
- Propose imaginative solutions of your own that are rooted in evidence
- Communicate clearly, concisely and persuasively in writing and speech
- Work to deadlines and priorities, managing a range of tasks at the same time
- Learn from constructive criticism and incorporate its insights
- Work as part of a team, developing a collaborative approach to problem-solving
- Use IT programmes and digital media, where appropriate
- Take responsibility for your learning programme and professional development.
Our graduates progress into a wide range of careers using the skills gained throughout their degrees. Some choose to pursue professions making direct use of their discipline expertise, while others enter the public or private sectors, from teaching to graduate-track management.
Taking the Class of 2017 as our most recent example, graduates from the School have gone on to roles in teaching, marketing, publishing, public relations, the civil service, the military, banking and insurance, and the charity sector, in first posts including Trainee Teacher, Marketing Assistant, Account Executive, Digital Editor and Editorial Assistant.
During your degree, you can take full advantage of the wide range of opportunities provided by the Careers Service.
Philosophy graduates acquire excellent analytic and communication skills that fit them for a full range of professions and further training. Their cultural expertise and intellectual abilities are valued in the public and private sectors, and in contexts as varied as the classroom, the law courts or the media.
Graduate Careers
- Intelligence Officer
- Commercial Associate
- PR trainee