General provisions

The course is primarily intended as a second-cycle and third-cycle course, but students on the first cycle (C level) can register. The examination requirements are different for each level, see the heading Assessment.

Entry requirements

60 credits in Theoretical Philosophy or 60 credits in Practical Philosophy.

Learning outcomes

After completing the course the students are expected to be able to:

• account for the basic themes and issues covered in the course
• describe the most important elucidations of key features of the relation between place and experience
• analyse the consequences of such accounts for our conceptions of thought and action
• formulate an independent assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of these accounts

Content

What is place, and what is its relation to thought and action? The course concerns the role of bounds and limits for human experience. It raises questions concerning how subjectivity and objectivity are related to place, and how place or "placedness" is fundamental for our conceptions of space and time. These seemingly abstract categories are examined in terms of our more everyday practices of reasoning and talking about past and future, self and other, center and periphery, with implications for the study of historical events, social structures, political problems, and cultural artefacts.

Instruction

Lectures and seminars.

Assessment

Two short reaction papers and a longer final paper. A student's active participation and good performance in class may be a positive factor in the overall evaluation of the student's work for the course.

Second-cycle students will be expected to write more comprehensive and conceptually advanced essays than first-cycle students, and the requirements concerning scholarship will be set higher. Third-cycle students will be expected to write more comprehensive and conceptually advanced essays than second-cycle students, and the requirements concerning scholarship will be set higher.

If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may make an exception from the method of assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. An example of special reasons might be a certificate regarding special pedagogical support from the University's disability coordinator.