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    Philosophy - MRes

    What is the nature of the mind? Do we have free will? Do we owe it to future generations to tackle climate change? Addressing issues of today, the past or what’s to come, philosophical questions are as relevant now as ever. On this research-focused course, you’ll engage in critical thinking, developing analytical and problem-solving skills that will enable you to understand, communicate and respond to different ideas and arguments effectively. Excellent preparation for further research or doctoral study, you’ll also be well placed for roles in business or government, marketing, policy-making, charitable organisations, education and training, or law.

    Month of entry

    • September, January

    Mode of study

    • Full time, Part time

    Location

    Subject area

    • Philosophy

    Fees for 2023/24 academic year

    • UK - Full time £8,900 per year. Part time £4,900 per year.
      International - £17,700 per year.

    Duration of study

    • Full time 1 year, Part time 2 years
    Apply now

    Please note: this course is no longer accepting applications from international students for September 2023 entry

    This course is open for January 2024 entry for UK and International students

    Why study Philosophy at Keele University?

    Keele’s Philosophy Department has enjoyed a strong reputation since the 1950s and benefits from a wide-ranging portfolio of expertise
    High staff-to-student ratio enhanced by small-group tutorials and a strong, inclusive research community
    Cutting-edge research in metaphilosophy, history of philosophy, metaphysics of science, natural and social kinds, political theory, philosophy of mind and action, religion and the meaning of life
    Home to the Keele-Oxford-St Andrews Kantian Research Centre (KOSAK), acknowledging our leading expertise in the area of Kantian studies within the UK and Europe
    Leading academics from across the world present regularly at our Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, annual Jean-Jacques Rousseau Lecture, annual conference, and other research events

    Course summary

    If you want to explore philosophical questions around right and wrong, truth and falsehood, the meaning of life, human beings, logic and language, or the nature of the universe, this research-based MRes will encourage you to think critically about the world around us, while developing skills in rigorous analysis, sound argument and persuasive communication.

    The questioning nature of philosophy and its relevance to society today makes for interesting and sometimes controversial debate in class. Whether you're set on doing a PhD or have never studied philosophy before, this course will allow you to broaden your knowledge of philosophy, gaining a deeper understanding of key philosophical texts, as well as developing practical research skills and abilities through our dedicated research training.

    This course is ideal for students who want the freedom to write a dissertation on a topic of their choice, while also receiving the guidance expected of a taught masters. From the outset, you will be paired with an experienced supervisor to support your personal and professional development, working together to refine your individual research, writing and communications skills, for example, preparing successful research proposals and grant applications.

    Keele has a long standing and excellent reputation for the study of Philosophy: well-known Keele philosophers include Antony Flew, Richard Swinburne, Jonathan Dancy, and many others. You’ll join a vibrant, close-knit community where you’ll have access to friendly and approachable staff with research expertise in all the main areas of philosophy, as well as specialisms like metaphilosophy, Kant, modality, property theory, the philosophy of technology, the philosophy of history, the meaning of life, Schopenhauer, Collingwood, and political philosophy.

    In addition to the dedicated Keele Postgraduate Association, we have a thriving student-led Philosophy Society, a postgraduate research seminar, and regular reading group activities. You’ll have opportunities to attend frequent online or in-person guest lectures thanks to our Royal Institute of Philosophy lecture series, annual conference and other specialist research events. Previous talks, for example, have covered early modern theories of racism in history of philosophy, the philosophy of art, the philosophy of time, and a debate on the existence of free will.

    Given its focus on research, the MRes provides an excellent foundation for further research as an MPhil or PhD student in the UK, Europe or the rest of the world. If you’ve not yet decided on a firm career, it offers an opportunity to study a fascinating subject and develop essential problem-solving, critical thinking, reasoning and analytical skills.

    Other courses you might be interested in:

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    "Having graduated with a postgraduate philosophy degree at Keele University, I couldn’t recommend this establishment highly enough. My supervisor gave me ample room to develop my own ideas, whilst challenging me to improve them in constructive ways. The team of professors also helped my studies greatly with true care, diligence and patience. And to be honest, all of the staff and students were highly focused on academic excellence, inclusivity, and challenging preconceptions equally. The general atmosphere was one I’ll truly miss. So, if you are lucky enough to have the opportunity to study here, I strongly suggest that you take up a course at this University. It will bring the best out of you"

    Jonathan, MRes Philosophy Graduate

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    Course structure

    Taking your philosophical studies to the next level, this MRes in Philosophy aims to provide you with a thorough grounding in the theoretical and practical issues that underpin study and research in Philosophy, while giving you the freedom to explore your interests and ideas.

    It purposefully seeks to develop your ability to think independently and address problem-solving in a systematic and disciplined way, equipping you with key transferable skills in project management, communication, analysis and reasoning.

    You’ll be encouraged to actively research and discuss a vast and exciting breadth of topics, helping you to find your own philosophical voice among those of your contemporaries and forbears. For example, recent students have worked on the metaphysics of pregnancy, the ethics of sustainability, the political and social use of stereotypes, possible worlds, and the existence of the self through Buddhist and Western approaches. In doing so, you’ll develop your ability to analyse complex information and present your arguments clearly and coherently.

    Given the nature of an MRes programme, particular emphasis is put on research: with a high component of dedicated research support and training modules designed to equip students with additional skills required to carry out research in Philosophy and a 20,000-word dissertation to be completed by the end of the programme.

    The MRes Philosophy can be studied as either a one-year full-time or two-year part-time course, with start dates in September and January. You will complete 180 credits, which includes four compulsory core modules (a total of 90 credits) that are designed to equip you with additional skills in research. In order to graduate with an MRes degree, you must undertake a dissertation (90 credits) on a topic in Philosophy that interests you.

    • PHI-40004 Metaphilosophy (30 credits)
      Metaphilosophy, also referred to as ‘the philosophy of philosophy’, studies the aims of philosophy, its boundaries, methods, subject matter and relation to other disciplines like natural science or history. Capitalising on Keele’s expertise in the discipline, this module introduces key terms and debates in metaphilosophy, such as what is distinctive about philosophical problems, or what would count as progress in philosophy. Topics covered include: the nature of philosophical arguments, the possibility of progress in philosophy, the relation between theoretical and practical philosophy, and competing conceptions of philosophy offered by Kant, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Rorty.

    • PHI-40007 Philosophy of the Social Sciences: Part 1 (15 credits)
      You will study the philosophy of the social sciences, together with philosophical debates around different methodological approaches to social science research. This module features the work of a range of key thinkers, including Durkheim, Popper, Kuhn, Weber, Adorno, and Foucault, who have informed the ways in which researchers consider knowledge in the social sciences. We start with the enlightenment idea of the search for science and the nineteenth century beginnings of social science. Topics covered include: naturalism, the relationship between the individual and society, falsificationism, paradigm shifts, the interpretive tradition, critical theory, structuralism and post-structuralism.
    • PHI-40006 Individual Research Orientation in Philosophy (30 credits)
      This module aims to develop the skills and knowledge to manage your own academic interests and research, including independent research, time management, critical approach and resource identification. Through independent work guided by your dissertation supervisor, you will undertake a range of research-related activities, which will ultimately help to inform the selection of your topic for research, the identification of appropriate resources and the construction of a relevant argument which will form the background for your dissertation.

    • PHI-40007 Philosophy of the Social Sciences: Part 2 (15 credits)
      Following on from the Individual Research Orientation module, whereby you conduct guided research on a background issue related to your dissertation, the second part of the Philosophy of the Social Sciences module provides an opportunity to apply your knowledge to the specific topic of your dissertation. You will reflect on the methodological issues it raises, considering questions such as the legitimacy of philosophy being applied to social issues, questions of classification concerning race, gender and other social kinds, the impact of theories of free will on how we ought to tackle crime and poverty, and the metaphysical nature of social institutions, properties and facts.

    After you have completed the taught modules, you will undertake an independent project to further develop your knowledge in a specific area or topic of philosophy, designed to enhance your employability and research skills:

    • PHI-40002 Dissertation (90 credits)
      Representing the culmination of your studies, this is your chance to apply the skills and knowledge gained throughout the course to write a substantial piece of philosophical research. It provides an exciting opportunity to work under the supervision of an expert in your chosen field of interest, demonstrating a level of knowledge and understanding far beyond what you have learned in class. Past projects include: Nietzsche's theory of the Will to Power; nihilist theories of personal identity; the ethics of using stereotypes; the ethics of sustainability; the philosophy of psychology: the existence of possible worlds.

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    Entry requirements

    Academic Entry Requirements

    Students should have a good degree, 2:2 minimum, from an awarding UK institution, or its equivalent. It is not necessary to hold the degree in philosophy. For students who fall short of this requirement, relevant work experience, or evidence of experience in the field, can be considered as an alternative.

    English Language Entry Requirement for International Students

    Students for whom English is not the first language are required to take one of the internationally recognised English language tests such as Academic IELTS or equivalent English language qualification. The minimum entry level is IELTS 6.5 with a minimum of 5.5 in each subtest, or equivalent English language test scores.

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    Entry requirements

    Academic Entry Requirements

    Students should have a good degree, 2:2 minimum, from an awarding UK institution, or its equivalent. It is not necessary to hold the degree in philosophy. For students who fall short of this requirement, relevant work experience, or evidence of experience in the field, can be considered as an alternative.

    English Language Entry Requirement for International Students

    Students for whom English is not the first language are required to take one of the internationally recognised English language tests such as Academic IELTS or equivalent English language qualification. The minimum entry level is IELTS 6.5 with a minimum of 5.5 in each subtest, or equivalent English language test scores.

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    Funding

    Living Costs

    Keele University is located on a beautiful campus and has all the facilities of a small town. Student accommodation, shops, restaurants and cafes are all within walking distance of the teaching buildings. This is a very cost effective way to live and to reduce your living costs.

    Scholarships and Funding 

    We are committed to rewarding excellence and potential. Please visit our Scholarships and Bursaries webpage for more information.

    Please note, if your course offers a January start date, the January 2023 start date falls in the 2022/23 academic year. Please see the 2022/23 academic year fees for the relevant fees for starting this course in January 2023.

    Planning your funding

    It's important to plan carefully for your funding before you start your course. Please be aware that not all postgraduate courses and not all students are eligible for the UK government postgraduate loans and, in some cases, you would be expected to source alternative funding yourself. If you need support researching your funding options, please contact our Financial Support Team.

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    Your career

    The personal and professional skills learned on this philosophy degree include clear and analytical thinking, originality, problem-solving, persuasive writing and speaking, innovative questioning and effective reasoning, all of which can open a wide range of careers.

    Analytical ability, for example, tops Forbes’ list of in-demand skills employers want. Being able to understand and, if required, challenge people’s ideas, approaches and perspectives is a difficult skillset to master, yet one that is valuable and relevant to almost any profession.

    Career options include the civil service, politics, public administration, police, finance, IT, law, healthcare, human resources, property development, teaching and training, community and voluntary work. This course is also excellent preparation for doctoral study or careers in research or academia with previous masters students continuing with PhD studies at Keele and other excellent institutions in the UK and elsewhere.

    Positions may include:

    • Academic
    • Business analyst
    • Chaplain
    • Civil servant
    • Copy writer
    • Development officer
    • Human resources officer
    • Local government officer
    • Marketing executive
    • Philosopher
    • Policy officer
    • Recruitment consultant
    • Researcher
    • Social researcher
    • Software developer
    • Solicitor
    • Teacher

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    Teaching, learning and assessment

    How you'll be taught

    This course includes a combination of taught classes, lectures, seminars, large and small group work and guided independent study. With smaller-sized classes, our ethos is very much about learning co-operatively and supportively in a friendly, nurturing environment, sharing your ideas with tutors and peers and vice versa.

    As part of the Metaphilosophy module, students submit a mini-essay to be circulated to students and seminar leaders in advance of the seminar. This not only enables much more focused, positive discussion, but has also led to significantly improved final submissions. Our fortnightly postgraduate seminars also provide you with regular opportunities to present arguments and quickly assimilate alternative perspectives. Some of the more recent seminars have covered the meaning of life, the possibility of mystical knowledge, the essence of objects, and the philosophy of history.

    Where possible, you’ll be given opportunities to carry out practical research, including travelling to archives to examine particular documents or shadowing our active researchers.

    Our vibrant (in person and online) speaker programme gives you multiple opportunities to network and engage with the cutting-edge ideas from all around the world. This includes the regular Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, in which leading philosophers are invited to Keele to talk about their latest work. Recent talks have covered the existence of free will, early modern theories of racism in the history of philosophy, the philosophy of art, and the philosophy of time.

    A number of other specialist events include the annual Jean-Jacques Rousseau Annual Lecture and Conference, which has previously attracted key speakers such as Boston University’s Susan Shell and Pauline Kleingeld from the University of Groningen. You ae also welcome to attend events of interest held by Keele School of Law, which has been a pioneer of ethics and law education for 35 years.

    Teaching schedule

    Teaching takes place over the first two semesters. There are no formal group classes during Semesters 2 and 3, but you consult with supervisors and access the University’s learning and teaching facilities and support services.

    Semester 1 runs from the end of September to the end of January, with an assessment period in January.
    Semester 2 runs from the last week of January to the middle of June, with the assessment period in June.
    Semester 3 runs from June to the end of September.

    How you’ll be assessed

    The programme is primarily assessed through written work, mainly essays on particular topics and the dissertation to demonstrate your understanding of module content, as well as your analytical abilities and your evaluation of particular debates, arguments or ideas.

    The first essay for the Philosophy of the Social Sciences module requires you to explore a methodological school or an issue related to a particular methodology in social sciences and humanities more generally. For example, the application of virtue ethics to the problem of plastic pollution, the use of falsification in the social sciences, and the nature of 'social facts'. Assessment during the first semester is also used to ensure your competence in essential academic skills, such as referencing, quoting, selecting relevant material, answering the question set, and written English.

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    Keele Postgraduate Association

    Keele University is one of a handful of universities in the UK to have a dedicated students' union for postgraduate students. A fully registered charity, Keele Postgraduate Association serves as a focal point for the social life and welfare needs of all postgraduate students during their time at Keele.

    KPA interior

    Hugely popular, the KPA Clubhouse (near Horwood Hall) provides a dedicated postgraduate social space and bar on campus, where you can grab a bite to eat and drink, sit quietly and read a book, or switch off from academic life at one of the many regular events organised throughout the year. The KPA also helps to host a variety of conferences, as well as other academic and career sessions, to give you and your fellow postgraduates the opportunities to come together to discuss your research, and develop your skills and networks.

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    Our expertise

    Teaching staff

    Philosophy at Keele has enjoyed a strong international reputation since the 1950s, with well-known Keele philosophers including Antony Flew, Richard Swinburne, Jonathan Dancy, James Wilson and many others. Today, we continue to conduct wide-ranging research in partnership with networks of philosophers in several universities in the UK and worldwide. We have a strong reputation in Kantian studies, as one of the main centres of activities of the UK Kant Society and of the Kantian Standing Group of the European Consortium for Political Research, and work on metaphysics as associates of the international Change and Change-Makers Network based in Germany.

    We are home to the Keele-Oxford-St Andrews Kantian Research Centre (KOSAK), Forum for Philosophical Research and Centre for Political Theory and Political Philosophy. We regularly host high profile events, such as the Royal Institute of Philosophy Invited Lectures, the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Annual Lecture and Conference, reading groups, special lectures and other conferences and workshops.

    You’ll be taught within a tight-knit, supportive community by a committed team of staff whose particular strengths include metaphilosophy, the philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, certain areas in the history of philosophy (including Anne Conway, Kant, Schopenhauer, Collingwood, Rorty, Quine), metaphysics of science, natural and social kinds, political theory, philosophy of religion, nihilism and the meaning of life.

    Teaching team includes:

    Dr Sophie Allen, Lecturer in Philosophy– primarily interested in the intersection between metaphysics, science and mind, as well as meta-metaphysics and issues of methodology and interpretation which arise when doing philosophy, and the author of A Critical Introduction to Properties (Bloomsbury 2016).

    Professor Sorin Baiasu, Professor of Philosophy, Director of KOSAK – a leading authority on the philosophies of Kant and Sartre, and the author of Kant and Sartre: Rediscovering Critical Ethics (Palgrave MacMillan 2011), among many other publications. His main areas of research interest are Kantian Philosophy; normativity (in ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy and epistemology); metaphysics; justice and Desert; and phenomenology and its history, particularly Sartre.

    Dr Giuseppina D’Oro, Reader in Philosophy – a member of the Forum for European Philosophy, of the Collingwood and British Idealism Centre, coordinator of the Keele Forum for Philosophical Research and a leading authority on the philosophy of R.G. Collingwood, author of Collingwood and the Metaphysics of Experience (Routledge 2002). Her main research interests are in the philosophy of action, particularly the history of the reasons/causes debate, the nature of the action event/distinction and the problem of mental causation. She is also interested in metaphilosophy, particularly the relation between philosophy and science, and in how second-order metaphilosophical positions affect our understanding of the relationship between the human and natural sciences.

    Dr Jonathan Head, Lecturer in Philosophy – main research interests are early modern philosophy; Kantian philosophy, particularly Kant’s philosophy of religion and the philosophy of Schopenhauer; and the philosophy of religion/philosophical theology. He is the author of The Philosophy of Anne Conway (Bloomsbury 2020) and Schopenhauer and the Nature of Philosophy (Lexington 2021).

    Professor James Tartaglia, Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy – a leading authority on the philosophy of Richard Rorty, and the author of Rorty and the Mirror of Nature (Routledge 2007), Philosophy in a Meaningless Life (Bloomsbury 2016) and Gods and Titans: Philosophy in a Technological World (Bloomsbury 2020). A jazz musician responsible for the Jazz-Philosophy Fusion Project, his main research interests are in philosophy of mind, particularly in physicalism and consciousness, metaphilosophy, particularly in the relation between philosophy, science, and religion, and the problem of personal identity. He is able to supervise in many areas of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, epistemology, continental philosophy and the history of philosophy, and would also consider proposals in comparative philosophy (especially Western-Chinese) and some areas of the philosophy of technology.

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    Facilities

    The School of Social, Political and Global Studies brings together multidisciplinary academics in Criminology, Education, International Relations, Philosophy, Politics and Sociology, whose research is internationally respected for its theoretical innovations and relevance to applications in the real world.

    Teaching usually takes place in the Chancellor's building on the main campus, giving you easy access to lecture and seminar rooms, library facilities and computer laboratories as appropriate.

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