Skip to main content

Study BA Philosophy at My College


Re posting this, for your information. We are still accepting applications. Recent news is our very good score for student satisfaction, again, on the National Student Survey.

I happen to be tutor for admission for the BA in philosophy at Heythrop College University of London. If you want to find about more about our BA programme, or an evening MA in philosophy, get in touch (email address is in the header to this page). Obviously with the new fees system, all colleges are focusing on recruitiment, and so are we of course. Obviously we're not as well known as some other colleges. But we are quite exceptional.

So here are a few facts about Heythrop you might be interested in, if you're thinking about pursuing a degree in Philosophy or Theology.

(1) Heythrop is the University of London college that specializes in just Philosophy and Theology. It's all we do.

(2) Heythrop students achieve remarkably good results, despite our comparatively modest entry requirements. We have outperformed other better known colleges in terms of number of first class hons degrees achieved, for example

(3) This is because, astonishingly, Heythrop runs a one-to-one tutorial system. Students receive individual one-to-one tutorials on all their second and third year essays. This is unheard outside of Oxbridge, of course, and is one of the main reasons are students are so academically successful.

(4) Heythrop is a Jesuit foundation (in fact it's the oldest college of the University of London, being founded by the Jesuits in 1614, though one of the most recent member colleges of the University). However, despite its religious foundation, it is highly diverse in its membership. (I'm there, for goodness sake. And I'm made to feel very welcome too.) We just ask that you think and question with an open mind.

(5) Heythrop is small, friendly, and located in beautiful, leafy Kensington Square, very close to Kensington High Street tube station.

(6) Heythrop has some excellent philosophy research going on. Tom Crowther is doing cutting edge work in the Philosophy of Perception, for example (recent paper in Philosophical Review). But our greatest strength is in Philosophy of Religion. We have Professors Keith Ward and John Cottingham working in this area as part of Heythrop's Centre for The Philosophy of Religion. And of course I am regularly publishing in philosophy of religion too (and other areas).

Here's a recent letter of mine published in the Independent:

Dominic Lawson ("A Private Sector Oxbridge? Not Exactly" 7th June) rightly celebrates the one-to-one tutorial system, offered by Oxford and Cambridge, which he describes as "the single most valuable aspect of their educational offering". But Lawson is wrong to say the system is only offered by Oxford and Cambridge. It is also offered by Heythrop College, University of London for undergraduate degrees in philosophy and theology.

If you want to know more, get in touch with me directly. Our website is here. Open days and student conferences availabl.

Stephen Law
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Tutor for Admissions BA Hons Philosophy, Heythrop College, University of London.

Comments

Sketch Sepahi said…
I'd definitely be interested if I hadn't already finished my BA and nearly finished my MA. Especially that picture makes it look very idyllic.
May 22, 2012 at 8:09 PM
Paul P. Mealing said…
If I lived over there, I could be very tempted, despite my age.

Regards, Paul.
May 23, 2012 at 5:24 AM
Anonymous said…
It didnt do too well on a recent guardian ranking. any thoughts?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/table/2012/may/22/university-guide-philosophy
May 24, 2012 at 7:54 AM
Stephen Law said…
Ah yes, that is largely because, among other things, our spend per student is said to be 1, due to the fact that a great deal of what we provide is provided free (e.g. many religious teaching staff that are non-salaried). That figure obviously seriously distorts our placing all by itself! There are other issues too, such as how employment or further study after 6 months can be recorded in different ways, I'm told.
May 24, 2012 at 10:07 AM
Mr. Hamtastic said…
Is there any way to attend online?
May 31, 2012 at 1:16 PM
lawyer information said…
This blog is great. How did you come up with the idea?
December 11, 2012 at 9:21 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS

(Published in Faith and Philosophy 2011. Volume 28, Issue 2, April 2011. Stephen Law. Pages 129-151) EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS Stephen Law Abstract The vast majority of Biblical historians believe there is evidence sufficient to place Jesus’ existence beyond reasonable doubt. Many believe the New Testament documents alone suffice firmly to establish Jesus as an actual, historical figure. I question these views. In particular, I argue (i) that the three most popular criteria by which various non-miraculous New Testament claims made about Jesus are supposedly corroborated are not sufficient, either singly or jointly, to place his existence beyond reasonable doubt, and (ii) that a prima facie plausible principle concerning how evidence should be assessed – a principle I call the contamination principle – entails that, given the large proportion of uncorroborated miracle claims made about Jesus in the New Testament documents, we should, in the absence of indepen...
159 comments
Read more

The Evil God Challenge and the "classical" theist's response

On another blog, FideCogitActio, some theists of a "classical" stripe (that's to say, like Brian Davies, Edward Feser) are criticisng the Evil God Challenge (or I suppose, trying to show how it can be met, or sidestepped). The main post includes this: In book I, chapter 39 , Aquinas argues that “there cannot be evil in God” (in Deo non potest esse malum). Atheists like Law must face the fact that, if the words are to retain any sense, “God” simply cannot be “evil”. As my comments in the thread at Feser’s blog aimed to show, despite how much he mocks “the privation theory of evil,” Law himself cannot escape its logic: his entire argument requires that the world ought to appear less evil if it is to be taken as evidence of a good God. Even though he spurns the idea that evil is a privation of good, his account of an evil world is parasitic on a good ideal; this is no surprise, though, since all evil is parasitic on good ( SCG I, 11 ). Based on the conclusions of se...
446 comments
Read more

Sye show continues

I was sent a link to this , for those interested in the never ending saga of Sye TenBruggencate and his "proof" of the existence of God. Hit "sinner ministries' proof of the existence of god" link below or on side bar for 30+ earlier posts on this topic that I wrote during an extended interchange with him last summer (check the literally many hundreds of comments attached to these posts if you really want to get into how Sye thinks and argues). Sye's amazing intial "proof" is available here . PS. For those interested, my own "presuppositional" proof, parodying Sye's proof by his principle "the impossibility of the contrary" (which turns out to be the key to Sye's proof) is: My claim: Sye's mind is addled and his thinking unreliable because he was hit on the head by a rock. Prove this is false, Sye. Try to, and I will say - "But your "proof" presupposes your mind is not addled and you can recognise a pr...
250 comments
Read more