Italian and Philosophy

Italian and Philosophy is a pairing that connects the particular and the universal: the richness of one of Europe's great language and cultural traditions alongside the broadest and most enduring questions about how we should think, act, and live. Italian is the language of Dante, Machiavelli, and Calvino; it is also the language of contemporary Italy, of film, design, architecture, and a cultural influence that extends far beyond its borders. Philosophy, meanwhile, is a discipline of rigorous argument and conceptual clarity, concerned with logic, ethics, the nature of knowledge, the structure of reality, and the foundations of political and moral life.

At the University of St Andrews, this four-year programme develops you to a high level of proficiency in Italian while giving you a serious grounding in philosophical thought and method. Your Italian studies will take you from building linguistic competence to an advanced engagement with the language, equipping you to read literature, engage with scholarly texts in Italian, and communicate with confidence. You will also study Italian literature, culture, history, politics, and film, placing the language within its wider context and developing an understanding of Italy as a complex and historically layered society.

Your philosophy studies will develop your capacity for precise analytical thinking, structured argumentation, and engagement with both historical and contemporary philosophical texts, covering areas such as ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, and political philosophy.

A year abroad is included in the programme, giving you the invaluable experience of spending time in an Italian-speaking environment, deepening your language skills and your cultural understanding in ways that classroom study alone cannot achieve.

Graduates go on to careers in law, diplomacy, international organisations, translation and interpreting, education, journalism, publishing, and business in Italy or with Italian connections. Philosophy's rigorous analytical training also opens routes into consultancy, public policy, and academic research. Postgraduate study in philosophy, Italian studies, or law is a natural continuation.