Philosophy and Theological Studies

Philosophy and theological studies is a combination that addresses the deepest questions about existence, knowledge, value and the nature of the sacred. Philosophy, as an academic discipline, develops your capacity to reason precisely, evaluate arguments and engage with ideas that resist easy answers, from questions about what we can know and how we know it to questions about the nature of mind, the foundations of ethics and the structure of reality. Theological studies brings a complementary depth, engaging rigorously with the texts, traditions, arguments and lived practices through which human beings have understood the divine, wrestled with suffering and death, and attempted to articulate what is ultimately real.

At the University of St Andrews, the four-year MA programme in Philosophy introduces you to many of the views and arguments discussed in the philosophical tradition, including both historical and contemporary work, while providing you with the means of rationally and independently assessing those arguments. The theological studies component brings the same intellectual seriousness to questions of religion and faith, engaging with biblical scholarship, systematic theology, the history of Christian thought and the comparative study of religious traditions. A year abroad is built into the programme, extending both your academic experience and your encounter with different intellectual and religious contexts.

Graduates of philosophy and theological studies programmes move into a wide range of careers. Law, the civil service, education, journalism, chaplaincy, social work and the charitable sector all draw on graduates who have been trained to think carefully about difficult questions and communicate ideas with precision and clarity. Academic research in philosophy, theology or religious studies is a natural direction for those who wish to develop their expertise at postgraduate level.

The combination of rigorous analytical training and engagement with the great questions of human existence produces graduates who are genuinely versatile and deeply formed as thinkers.