Philosophy at St Andrews for 2008 entry

[Martin Fox]

Hi

I applied to do Philosophy at St Andrews to start 2008, and just got an offer through. I'm seriously considering coming to the university and I have a few questions about the course if anyone would be nice enough to answer.

Firstly, my particular interests are political philosophy, ethics (especially metaethics), philosophy of language, and logic. What is the university like on these topics?

How crowded are philosophy lectures in the first couple of years? I imagine it's quite a popular subject for people to take as one of their other subjects.

The Department is listed as Philosophy and Anthropology. Why are they combined, and is it any kind of comment on how established they are as a department?

What's your general experience of the philosophy course and department?

Thanks in advance, and (fingers crossed) St Andrews will turn out to be the right place for me.

[Guest]

Hi Martin,

Hopefully I can help.

Your interests: St Andrews is extremely strong for philosophy of language - certainly one of the best in the world. For logic, it is also amongst the strongest. On metaethics and political philosophy, we are perhaps less strong than we have been in the past. There are, however, three full professors with international repute with research interests in these areas, in addition to a few lecturers. So: not-very-very-strong, but still very-strong.

Are classes crowded? Yes - lectures in first and second year do tend to be quite full; as you say, philosophy attracts a number of people wishing to find a third subject. This is in the context of St Andrews being a very small university, however: there are probably less in numerical terms than in most other universities' first year lectures. Tutorial groups are small in the department, though. (I think capped at 8 per tutorial for 1st year, when you'll probably have 2 philosophy tutorials per week.)

Philosophy and Anthropology: entirely an administrative linking. The departments are located in different places, and I think, in the past n years, only one class has been taught jointly between the departments (and this only happened once.) It's certainly no comment on how established the departments are.

My experience? Philosophy in St Andrews is fantastic. The department is generally considered 3rd in the UK in terms of research, and recently received an extremely good teaching review. There are very many scholars of genuine international significance working at St Andrews.

If I can help any more, just ask...

[Grace]

Same! 2008 entry, sounds great. Can't wait. Whats it like as a place?

[ekpyrotic]

Logic and the Philosophy of Science, with Physics here.

Main interests lie in logic, philosophy of language, and, obviously, the philosophy of science.

[mhuzzell]

Essentially, the St Andrews Philosophy Department is just very, very, very analytic. And nothing else. Don't expect to study continental philosophy (political philosophy, metaphysics, anti-metaphysics, anything), except for Kant.

In terms of political philosophy, the emphasis in undergraduate courses has been almost entirely on social contract theory and enlightenment liberalism.

Logic is supposed to be a particular strong point, but the teaching of it sometimes leaves something to be desired. I didn't feel like the sub-honours logic courses sufficiently prepared me for honours logic, even by half. However, there is a lot of interesting research that goes on in Arche, which does get reflected in the undergraduate courses and in talks, etc. For instance we have Graham Priest for the first semester of every year, with all his interesting views on truth-value gaps and/or gluts.

[hr]

I FOUND JESUS... he was behind the couch the whole time!

[WashingtonIrving]

The department does have some great lecturers though. I've found all of the honours modules I've done to be very well taught. Sub-honours less so, but they have a hard time teaching a group of people with vastly differing backgrounds in philosophy. And the amount of contact you have with them increases a lot at honours level. Some of the classes are small so its essentially just you in a room with your lecturer and about 10 people.

Its annoying, I'd have loved to do some stuff on the philosophy of physics but nothing like that was offered in my time here.

I don't think somebody comes to a place like St Andrews expecting to do anything other than analytic philosophy, the department does make its interests clear. I think in the past Hegel and Nietzsche have been taught at honours level, but not recently. I do remember being given snippets of Nietzsche's Genealogy to read in 1st year actually.

[hr]

"I said farewell honey, I'll see you Judgment Day"

[Martin Fox]

Hi all,

Haven't looked at this thread since I posted it originally because I didn't see it go through, and assumed you needed to register to post.

Don't worry - I'm very much interested in analytic philosophy and disinclined towards continental. I also knew St Andrews was a place for the former, and that's in part why I chose it.

A belated thanks to everyone for your helpful information... I've since made St Andrews my firm offer for philosophy at ABB. All I have to do is wait for my results... fingers crossed and I'll post as soon as I know. Hopefully I'll see some of you next year.

Cheers.