Credit Points 10

Legacy Code 102583

Coordinator Brett Bowden Opens in new window

Description Ideas matter. It has been said that "ideas are what men and women live by, and will occasionally die for." If you want to explore and understand the relationship between ideas and actions across a range periods, places and perspectives, then this is the subject for you. The history of ideas is concerned with exploring and understanding the lived experience, the reality of ideas. We consider how the history of ideas can help us to interpret key thinkers and their ideas and how these ideas have shaped societies past and present.

School Humanities & Comm Arts

Discipline Philosophy

Student Contribution Band HECS Band 4 10cp

Check your fees via the Fees page.

Level Postgraduate Coursework Level 7 subject

Restrictions

Students must be enrolled in a postgraduate program.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:

1. Distinguish between primary documentary historical evidence and secondary theoretical works that explain or interpret;
2. Draw upon primary and secondary sources to understand ideas in historical social and political contexts;
3. Explain why and how ideas matter in the practice of social and political life historically and contemporaneously.

Subject Content

Content will draw from, or elaborate upon, a selection of the following topics:
- Historiography
- conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte)
- Intellectual history
- Ideology
- The enlightenment
- philosophy of history
- political philosophy
- Dangerous ideas