PHIL616 - Special Studies in Philosophy

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

Unit rationale, description and aim

This unit provides the Faculty of Theology Philosophy with the flexibility to respond to needs as they arise. It will normally be offered to meet the specific needs of a cohort of students, or to take advantage of the expertise of a visiting scholar or a faculty member’s research. With the permission of the course coordinator, cross-institutional enrolment at another institution may be arranged, provided the external unit’s content is aligned with a student’s specialisation and at or above AQF Level 8.

Overall, this unit enables students to extend their studies in philosophy and develop further knowledge of specialised aspects of the discipline.

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

LO1 - identify some of the key philosophical issues, debates and scholarly opinions in the area of study (GA5);

LO2 - analyse and evaluate critically some of the major issues and scholarly arguments in the area, and present a position of their own on them (GA4, GA5, GA8).

LO3 - demonstrate appropriate skills in philosophical research, and clear use of philosophically effective English expression (GA4; GA5; GA8; GA9)

Graduate attributes

GA4 - think critically and reflectively 

GA5 - demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession 

GA8 - locate, organise, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information 

GA9 - demonstrate effective communication in oral and written English language and visual media 

Content

Topic(s) will be chosen from a particular area of expertise of the member of staff or visiting lecturer in consultation with the Head of School. 

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

This unit involves 150 hours of focused learning. The total includes formally structured learning activities such as lectures, tutorials and online learning. The remaining hours typically involve reading, research, and the preparation of tasks for assessment. The unit has been designed as a blend of a blend of collaborative learning and project-based learning approaches, combined with direct instruction to introduce and draw out new and unfamiliar concepts and theories. The collaborative context of the unit is focused especially on the small group discussion of the weekly readings. The project-based aspect relates to the research project on which students work throughout the second half of the unit, culminating in their research essay.

Assessment strategy and rationale

The assessment strategy for this unit has been designed to examine students’ understanding of the philosophical issues and theories under consideration, as well as their ability to critically analyse those issues and theories. It does so through three graduated assessment tasks. The first two tasks prepare students for the third and principal task of writing an extended research essay. The two written analysis tasks examine students’ understanding of key concepts and theories, and their capacity to engage critically with some key texts in the field. The research essay requires students to research an area of the unit in further detail, and it examines their ability to develop and defend a coherent position of their own in a formally structured argumentative essay. 

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

A full list of reading will be made available by the visiting lecturer in the extended unit outline, on the basis of the area of philosophy to be covered.