Philosophy (M.A.)

Overview

If Philosophy today is no longer synonymous with Science as it was in Newton’s day, it is because in the course of time certain questions have been transferred to individual sciences once they had diverged from Philosophy. However, what Philosophy has to this day continued to cultivate as its own is the field of questions relating to the fundamental conditions of human action and understanding and consequently also questions about the principles underlying explanations given by (individual) sciences.

Behind such questions, regardless of their diversity and the wealth of answers given to them, the Department of Philosophy at JLU Giessen recognises the common concern of all philosophical thinking, which is to mould and deepen our concept of self as human beings.

The Master of Arts degree course in Philosophy aims to study this concern from the perspective of a new anthropology which is not to be classified as a special philosophical discipline, but rather as an umbrella covering and integrating the content of multi-facetted questions. In the themes and problems treated, the programme steers towards the contentual guiding question about the aspects and dimensions determining human forms of life at the interface between culture and nature. This contentual guiding question will enable you in your studies to integrate thematically the foci of your choice from practical and theoretical Philosophy and to act at the intersection of cultural studies and life sciences. The programme not only links philosophical questions with issues of a historical and cultural nature, but also points towards the field of the life sciences. The foci of the professorships in the department offer a productive environment to students interested in the exchange between philosophy and the individual sciences.

The excellent thematic profile of the Master’s programme in Giessen is complemented by the high degree of autonomy and responsibility expected of students regarding the content of their studies ‑ not only the issues they choose to investigate, but how they study and treat the content critically and productively. On the one hand, the curriculum covers traditional philosophical seminars and conventional forms of student academic work, but on the other, also a number of philosophical projects allowing students to experiment with alternative forms of philosophical work, such as book reviews, newspaper articles, conference papers or philosophical analyses of current affairs, all of which are intensively supervised by our academic staff. The programme will prepare our students not only for the challenges of an academic career but also for a wide spread of career openings in the field of culture.