Graduate Program

General Information

The Master of Arts (M.A.) program offered by our department is perennially the highest-ranked of its kind in the United States. It has an excellent record of placing its students in the very best Ph.D. programs in philosophy. The program is designed for students who wish to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy but whose undergraduate preparation in the subject might not qualify them for competitive doctoral programs. Students with other career plans are admitted as space permits.

The department has special strengths in political and social philosophy (including feminism and philosophy of race), philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics and epistemology, and continental philosophy. Each year at least six seminars are offered, typically on faculty research interests, which range from analytic metaphysics and the philosophy of biology to the history of ethics and philosophy and film.

The program requires students to complete ten courses, including an intensive logic course and a graduate writing seminar, and to pass three comprehensive exams. Students with proven strength in logic may be able to pass out of the logic requirement, but we do not accept transfer courses. No thesis is required.