Philosophy, PhD

Contact

Director of Graduate Studies
541 Hall of Languages
315-443-5827

Faculty

Martin Abreu Zavaleta, Luvell Anderson, Ben Bradley, Janice Dowell, Kevan Edwards, Verena Erlenbusch-Anderson, Samuel Gorovitz, Mark Heller, Karin Nisenbaum, Christopher Noble, Hille Paakkunainen, Kara Richardson, Michael Rieppel, David Sobel, Robert Van Gulick

The graduate program in philosophy offers study in the core areas of Anglo-American philosophy. It also offers work on the thought of some of the major figures of the history of philosophy, e.g., Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Leibniz, Spinoza, Descartes, and Kant. The department believes that each student’s education should include some study of the history of philosophy whether or not the student’s interests are primarily historical. The program is designed to prepare students both to teach philosophy and to contribute to the advance of philosophical inquiry.

There are generally 28 full-time philosophy graduate students in residence at Syracuse. Most full-time students in the Ph.D. program are awarded financial assistance in the form of a teaching assistantship, a fellowship, or a tuition scholarship.

Student Learning Outcomes

Write with a high degree of clarity, precision, organization, and with appropriate citations of sources
Demonstrate familiarity with a significant amount of philosophical literature that is relevant to a topic of study
Explain and evaluate important philosophical ideas, theories, and arguments
Formulate original philosophical arguments
Produce work suitable for presentation/publication in professional venues (e.g., conferences, journals)

Ph.D. in Philosophy

A total of 54 credits of graduate work are required for the Ph.D. in Philosophy. Of these, 18 credits must be devoted to a doctoral dissertation which is a book-length work of scholarly research and 36 credits (12 3-credit courses) must be devoted to coursework, as specified below. No credits may be transferred from prior graduate work except in exceptional circumstances.

A. Required Courses: The following four courses must be taken in the first three semesters. There will be a minimum grade requirement of B; students may retake a course at most once; incompletes will be awarded only in the event of a genuine emergency.

Two required courses may be replaced by electives at the discretion of the Director of Graduate Studies based on prior graduate work.

PHI 617 - Proseminar:History of Philosophy 3 credit(s)
PHI 651 - Logic and Language 3 credit(s)
PHI 687 - Proseminar: Language, Epistemology, Mind and Metaphysics 3 credit(s)
PHI 693 - Proseminar: Moral and Political Philosophy 3 credit(s)
B. Required Electives: Students must take eight additional courses, five of which are numbered 700 or higher. No more than two independent study courses may be included (PHI 690). These must include at least one course in each of the following three areas: (1) history of philosophy, (2) ethics and political philosophy, (3) language, epistemology, mind, and metaphysics. Prior graduate work may count toward this distributional requirement at the discretion of the Director of Graduate Studies, except for the history of philosophy requirement.

Additional Information

A full description of the Ph.D. requirements can be found on the departmental web site

Programs in Philosophy and Law

The Philosophy Department joins with the College of Law in offering an opportunity to pursue the J.D./M.A. Philosophy or the J.D./Ph.D. Philosophy degrees at the same time. See the departmental web site at http://philosophy.syr.edu/GradStudiesinfo.htm for a more detailed description of these programs.