(Updated 31 July 2018)
THE MA WRITING WORKSHOP provides intensive training in postgraduate-level writing and research. The Workshop is primarily designed for MA philosophy students. First-year PhD students can request permission from the Course Instructor to attend the class. Participants write a short essay every week (for five weeks) based on a reading assignment. We meet weekly in a common session to work both on the philosophical issues and on the micro-skills of writing. In addition, participants meet with their writing tutor in weekly tutorial sessions to get feedback on their submissions. Each year a different topic is chosen for the workshop. In later weeks, participants can also present work-in-progress from other modules or contexts (such as PhD proposals required for applying to PhD programmes and funding).
In 2018 the topic will be: Bernard Williams and necessary truth(s).
At pivotal junctures of his work, Bernard Williams invokes the idea of necessary truth. This idea seems, however, to sit uneasily with his historical approach of starting from the middle of things (our practices, commitments, and language games), and also his acceptance of a certain kind of relativism ('relativism of distance') as well as his rejection of 'external reasons'. We will look at a number of Williams' writings - and those of his critics - to trace the idea of necessary truth, the tensions it seems to give rise to, and the way(s) these might be resolved. We also will pay close attention to the way Williams presents his work, and ask what the relationship is between form and content.
THE MA WRITING WORKSHOP provides intensive training in postgraduate-level writing and research. The Workshop is primarily designed for MA philosophy students. First-year PhD students can request permission from the Course Instructor to attend the class. Participants write a short essay every week (for five weeks) based on a reading assignment. We meet weekly in a common session to work both on the philosophical issues and on the micro-skills of writing. In addition, participants meet with their writing tutor in weekly tutorial sessions to get feedback on their submissions. Each year a different topic is chosen for the workshop. In later weeks, participants can also present work-in-progress from other modules or contexts (such as PhD proposals required for applying to PhD programmes and funding).
In 2018 the topic will be: Bernard Williams and necessary truth(s).
At pivotal junctures of his work, Bernard Williams invokes the idea of necessary truth. This idea seems, however, to sit uneasily with his historical approach of starting from the middle of things (our practices, commitments, and language games), and also his acceptance of a certain kind of relativism ('relativism of distance') as well as his rejection of 'external reasons'. We will look at a number of Williams' writings - and those of his critics - to trace the idea of necessary truth, the tensions it seems to give rise to, and the way(s) these might be resolved. We also will pay close attention to the way Williams presents his work, and ask what the relationship is between form and content.