Philosophy and Literature

Philosophy and literature is a combination that recognises a fundamental truth about both disciplines: philosophy and literature are engaged in related and overlapping projects. Literature uses narrative, metaphor, character, and the resources of language to explore what it means to be human and how we should live. Philosophy uses argument, analysis, and rigorous conceptual examination to address the same questions more directly, asking what we can know, how we ought to act, and what constitutes a good life and a just society.

The two disciplines illuminate each other in ways that neither can achieve alone.

At the University of the Highlands and Islands, this programme allows you to engage with both subjects in a setting that has its own distinctive character. The Highlands and Islands context, with its particular cultural and linguistic history, its relationship to land and sea, and its experience of social and economic change, provides a rich background against which to think about philosophical and literary questions of place, identity, community, and justice. You will study the major philosophical traditions and key texts alongside the study of literature across periods and traditions, developing both the analytical precision of philosophical argument and the close reading skills that literary study demands.

Graduates from philosophy and literature programmes go on to careers in education, publishing, journalism, the civil service, cultural organisations, and any professional context that values the ability to think carefully about complex ideas and to communicate with clarity and depth. Further study at postgraduate level in philosophy, English literature, or humanities is available for those who wish to develop specialist expertise or pursue research.