Program Overview

The Bachelor of Arts is the ultimate, flexible university degree, and you can tailor it to explore your interests and discover a wide range of career possibilities. It is an opportunity to pursue what you loved in high school or branch out into areas you've never had the opportunity to explore.

Our students embrace the joy of open enquiry, are curious about life’s big questions, and are on a life-long quest for knowledge and inspiration. You will hone skills like critical-thinking, research, and inter-cultural awareness under the guidance of passionate academics who are leading researchers in their fields.

You can take on cultural, environmental, and humanitarian challenges from multiple perspectives and gain the confidence to make a positive difference. Through our close relationships with government and industry partners, we will prepare you to start your career with the skills employers want.

Major: Philosophy
Studying Philosophy allows you to ask (and occasionally answer) the very biggest of questions. What makes for a meaningful life? What can we know? What is the nature of the world, or of ourselves in it? What kind of societies are just? Philosophy explores fundamental questions about the human condition, relevant for people at all times and in all places, but equally arising out of the specifics of each life - whether in Tasmania or anywhere else. It considers problems and concerns arising from art, literature, science, law, religion, and many other human endeavors, along with the basic matter of an ethical engagement with the world. Philosophy also gives you skills in analysis, reasoning, and clear and cogent communication - highly valued attributes across all study areas in the Bachelor of Arts as well as contemporary professions.

In this major you will encounter philosophical issues from different perspectives across both Eastern and Western philosophical traditions. In the first year, you will study some of the central branches of philosophy - ethics and political philosophy, metaphysics, and epistemology. In the second year you will explore the history of philosophical thinking, in ancient Greece, the Buddhist tradition and the early modern world in Europe. By third year you will be investigating current issues: reading major modern philosophical texts, examining the connections between philosophy and other fields of inquiry, and bringing philosophical work to bear on contemporary problems.