Global Philosophies & Worldviews and Politics

GLOBAL PHILOSOPHIES & WORLDVIEWS

*This course is for 2025 entry only

*subject to validation

We live in a global society, and every day the apps on our phones and computers bring us new ideas and opinions from across the world. So, how do people negotiate this media-saturated world with its diverse - and sometimes apparently irreconcilable - ways of understanding the big questions? How do people coexist with others whose worldview is radically different to their own? What makes for a global citizen? 

This Major challenges you to grapple with these - and similar questions. You will explore what can be learned from the ‘wisdom’ of different traditions in our pluralist contemporary world - chiefly by asking how other people have worked through questions like these. In responding to this question you will explore in depth how non-Western philosophical and religious traditions have tackled them. 

You will also look at the ways that Western philosophers and Jewish, Muslim and Christian theologians have looked at these issues. Along the way you will look at how people form - and reform their worldview. You will ask such questions as does scientism lead to a reduction in human capacity for engaging with reality? Is the Western secularisation model fundamentally colonialist? 

POLITICS

Politics affects all of us. It is central to human life and human affairs. It is fundamental to how we organise and govern ourselves and to how we resolve conflicts. The decisions we make as political communities, who makes them and how, have consequences for how we live, from questions of war and peace, the distribution of wealth, our rights, freedoms, responsibilities, our access to education, transport and health care.

In this rapidly changing world, new challenges are constantly arising – from climate change to new technologies, from identity politics to Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic – and the study of politics needs to respond. At Liverpool Hope, therefore, we seek to engage with politics and political issues in the real world as they evolve and change over time. In doing so, we actively encourage debate and discussion amongst our students, encouraging a stronger awareness and appreciation of different points of view.

On this programme of study, you will explore key ideas, institutions and politics in an international, national and local context. You will be taught by staff who are experts in their fields, who will teach you to engage with political research and develop the capacity to be an independent, critically-minded scholar. The course also aims to equip you with transferable skills to take into the world of work.