Philosophy (MPhil / PhD)

OUR RESEARCH CULTURE

The Department of Philosophy is internationally renowned for research excellence, encompassing a range of areas within the discipline, namely contemporary analytic philosophy (metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, logic, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, ethics, aesthetics and political philosophy); the history of philosophical questions in many of these areas (we have specialists in ancient philosophy, and seventeenth-, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophy, including Nietzsche); and feminist philosophy.

Library resources include the Birkbeck Library, the University of London Library and the British Library, and the Department has its own small Ruby Meager Library.

Each year, the Department provides a number of teaching opportunities for research students. We strongly encourage students who are considering a career in philosophy, and who are sufficiently well prepared, to take advantage of the opportunity to teach undergraduates.

The Department provides a series of training sessions tailored to the needs of research students in philosophy, which are usually held once a term during Reading Week. The Department also regularly hosts a series of talks called ‘Approaches to Philosophy’, where philosophers from different universities present their way of approaching the subject.

Research students are also encouraged to attend the generic training courses organised by the Birkbeck Graduate Research School.