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Is philosophy at Oxford "analytical philosophy"?

Whether as part of PPE, or Mathematics and Philosophy etc. does the department at Oxford teach it as analytical philosophy like at Cambridge. Or at Oxford is it more like the History of Philosophy?
I would be very grateful if anyone currently studying at Oxford could let me know, thankyou!

Reply 1

warndog

Anyone who studies either courses got any advice?

Reply 2

Profesh

Original post by warndog

Anyone who studies either courses got any advice?

http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses

Though despite the increasingly urgent demand it would appear that 'An Introduction to Google' has still yet to be incorporated. How disappointing.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 3

warndog

Thankyou Profesh, your earnest contribution was really appreciated. All I was wondering was the opinion of people studying philosophy was whether only the "Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein" option was analytical philosophy, whereas the whole of the Cambridge course is supposedly analytical philosophy. This distinction is quite important to many people deciding which course to apply for. Hard to find that answer easily on Google.

Reply 4

faber niger

Yes, very much so. Few universities in the UK (Warwick and Sussex, for example) allow you to study continental philosophy to any significant degree. It's probably a good thing to have a background in analytic philosophy even if you then want to go on to work on Nietzsche or Foucault or whoever though. And the "history of philosophy" will, of course, figure in all courses, but only as context -- you won't be studying just the history of philosophy.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 5

warndog

Original post by jismith1989

Can I just ask you as another semi-related question: when studying philosophy at university, how much of your work/content of your essays is about analysing and evaluating what previous philosophers have said and how much is about your own opinion on philosophical topics?

Reply 6

Schlegel

Analytical philosophy is a school, or a writing/thinking style, not itself an area of study I'd say. Even when you concentrate on the work of prominent analytical philosophers (Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein) that'll be a part of history of (analytic) philosophy. Oxford, and the vast majority of other British universities (Warwick, Sussex, Essex and Heythope are the exceptions I know) are explicitly pro-analytical in their approach. That's to say the compulsory papers for first year are in most likelihood on logic, metaphysics, philosophy of mind instead of existentialism or Nietzsche. The difference is largely dependent on the size of the department, which in the case of oxford is large enough to allow them incorporate more 'continental' modules to the second and third year option list (19-th century German philosophy, philosophy of criticism etc.) than, say, LSE and Cambridge do. The department websites will offer a full view of the specialty of the institution. The philosophygourmet.com report can be a quick reference.

And btw at Oxford you must study philosophy with something else at UG level which certainly adds to the flexibility.