Classics/Philosophy
Classics and philosophy is one of the great intellectual combinations in the humanities, bringing together two traditions that have been intertwined since their origins in ancient Greece. Classics encompasses the languages, literature, history, art, and material culture of ancient Greece and Rome, offering engagement with the texts that first posed many of the fundamental questions of Western intellectual life. Philosophy is the systematic attempt to answer those questions through reason and argument, examining knowledge, reality, ethics, mind, and the nature of good societies.
Together they provide a rigorous formation in the deepest questions and the most careful methods of humanistic inquiry.
This part-time programme at the University of Glasgow includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to engage with these disciplines in a different academic tradition. You will be able to study Latin and Greek at whatever level suits your background, and the philosophical content spans both ancient and modern periods, allowing you to trace how questions first posed in classical antiquity have continued to be debated and transformed across the history of philosophy. The part-time mode makes the programme accessible to those who need to study alongside other commitments, though the intellectual demands of both disciplines are fully maintained.
Graduates of classics and philosophy programmes bring an intellectual formation that is widely respected across professional fields. Law, finance, the civil service, academia, education, journalism, and consulting are all common destinations, and the combination of linguistic precision from classics and the argumentative rigour of philosophy signals intellectual seriousness that employers in competitive fields value. Many graduates pursue postgraduate study in ancient philosophy, classical languages, history, or modern philosophy, and the combination provides a particularly strong foundation for academic careers in philosophy, classics, or intellectual history.