My name is Samantha (Sam), and I’m new to ilovephilosophy.com. I’m an 18 year old student in the UK, and have just applied to university, mainly to study Politics. However, one course is also coupled with Philosophy and Economics, and all the courses involve some sort of Political Philosophy module. So, my interests lie in improving my understanding of Philosophy, and in particular Political Philosophy.
In my personal statement on my university application form, I mentioned an argument I’d read involving private property. I have read quite a lot of the “right to property?” discussion here, but would be grateful if anyone could provide me with any more material for food for thought. Any books, too?
Thanks everyone. If you have time, leave a short reply describing yourself.
I’m in a similar boat =) Sent off the old UCAS wotsit a few weeks ago (for philosophy), and joined ILP in the hope of refining my philosophical beliefs ahead of interview…
This is rather informative on Property Rights. Lengthy though!
I’m interested, btw: did you consider philosophy itself? If so, why did you choose politics? I was in a deep quandry over what to apply for for a long time, and only came down on the philosophical side when I saw how often philosophical ideas have direct bearing on how one lives and on one’s politics.
Politics has always been my main interest, whereas Philosophy came much later on. I am also more certain to like a Politics course, but might find that I don’t mix well with Philosophy, so I chose single Politics. I’m fortunate though in that they are related subjects, so I can study Political Philosophy within my course, and also choose a straight Philosophy introduction module.
And to everyone else - thank you for all your responses! I will check out all the links.
I’m always suspicious of course related “philosophy” modules, they are often shockingly basic and have no detail. For example at uni I knew someone doing Pharmacy and someone doing Nursing who both had to do some sort of Philosophy module dealing with ethics (different modules) and yet chatting to them found them both quite worringly uninformed about the more complex arguments surrounding Euthanasia, for example. But then again I think my old Uni is turning into a factory for rubber stamping degrees, maybe I just expected too much. Like a challenge.
Si - not to worry, we’re not so similar - I’m pretty certain I wasn’t reading Marx at fourteen!
Apart from Marx’s The Communist Manifesto, I haven’t as yet read any books by the philosophers themselves. I’m currently reading Jonathan Wolff’s An Introduction to Political Philosophy, which I’m absolutely loving, and that covers a lot of the classical texts so I’m sure it won’t be long before I start on one! Regarding the political philosophy books, such as Mill’s On Liberty, Rousseau’s The Social Contract, etc., which one would be a good starter?
What universities did you apply to? I went for:
Oxford (PPE)
LSE (Government)
Bristol (Politics)
York (Politics)
Warwick (Politics with International Studies)
Birmingham (Political Science)
And Matt - the introductory Philosophy modules I’ve seen have actually been the same ones that the straight Philosophy students start off with themselves. So they can’t be too bad!
Good choices; I struggled w/ ox vs cam for a long time. It was the intense beauty of Trinity, Cam which decided me - it just felt right…
so (philosophy everywhere):
Cambridge;
Durham;
Essex;
Glasgow;
UCL;
York.
So, there’s an infinitessimal chance of bumping into each other @ York… With any luck we’ll be Oxbridge rivals though!
On Marx at 14: the interesting thing is that I found myself utterly indoctrinated into the ideals of the movement, without considering very deeply the actual process of the dialectic or anything truly philosophical. It was like an ideological grounding for me: I read him from a political rather than philosophical angle. Almost everything I read from then on I framed in socialist terms…
On Political Philosophy, Mills would seem to be the obvious choice; his work is the fundament of Liberal movements across the world. Hobbes’ Leviathan is an interesting contrast to it… Slightly off-topic, Chomsky is excellent at debunking present-day ideals, such as the ‘Free Market’, and the (self-proclaimed) American bid to enforce their brand of democracy across the world. Deterring Democracy and Rogue States are both kewl…
I’ve been to Cambridge’s Trinity - it really is beautiful, and absolutely huge! Good luck with your application. Funny how in this situation, our aim is to be rivals!
Also, another reason to chose Cambridge over Oxford is that they offer Striaght Philosophy, whereas Philosophy at Oxford must always be combined with something. I think Cambridge came higher in the Philosophy league tables, too (but Oxford was higher for Politics! )
Have you got AIM/MSN/ICQ? Would be fun to chat to you sometime!
Essex uni??? That’s a bit of a wild card in there isn’t it? Not exactly known for their academic prowess in anything are they! Not to diss your choice, but the rest are all Universitas 21 and then you’ve got Essex, just a bit surprised. Or has my old local uni pulled off an amazing feat these last few years?
On Essex: they did well in the Phil league tables this year (though not as well as the others, obviously.) And, although if I mess up my A-levels I’ll probably take at least a year out rather than go to a relatively shoddy Uni, I thought I’d better have something to fall back on if I decide to follow through on my application…
Well I never, that’s a turn up for the books. I am a little harsh on it, I think it’s actually quite good for science too. In fact I think it had the dubious privelege of training Dr.Death, Saddam’s chief of biological warfare programme.
