The faculty in the Department of Philosophy offer a graduate program leading to the M.A. degree in Philosophy.
MASTER OF ARTS
See “Master’s Degrees” for information on the M.A. degree.
Prerequisites. At least 15 semester hours of upper-division course work in philosophy, including history of philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics and the equivalent of PHI 333 Introduction to Symbolic Logic are required. No course credits in which a grade of less than “B” has been earned may count toward meeting this 15-semester-hour requirement. Persons otherwise qualified for admission but lacking the above prerequisites may make up this deficiency by enrolling as a nondegree graduate student and taking those philosophy courses necessary to complete the prerequisite. If some or most of the prerequisites have already been met, the student may be admitted into the program under “provisional status” or under “regular status with deficiencies.” All applicants for admission to the program must submit scores for the general section of the Graduate Record Examination.
Program of Study. The M.A. degree program in Philosophy is designed to prepare students either to teach philosophy at the community college level, to enter doctoral programs in philosophy at other institutions, or to be employed in any areas that require critical, analytical thinking (such as medicine, law, government, or publishing). The program seeks to maintain a balance between a breadth of course offerings in the traditional areas of philosophy—metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, logic, and history of philosophy—and opportunities for study in current philosophical developments, such as the philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and philosophical psychology. The program of study includes at least 30 semester hours of approved graduate-level courses, not including PHI 599 Thesis. An additional six hours of PHI 599 Thesis is required. The details of each student’s program are worked out with the director of graduate studies.
Course Requirements. Each student is required to take an approved graduate-level course of three semester hours or more in each of the following areas and to obtain at least a “B” in each course: metaphysics/epistemology, value theory and logic; and any two of the following: history of early philosophy, history of modern philosophy, and history of contemporary philosophy.
Foreign Language Requirements. None.
Thesis Requirements. A thesis is required. This written work must demonstrate the ability to carry out independent research in philosophy.
Final Examinations. A final oral examination in defense of the thesis is required.
RESEARCH ACTIVITY
The department offers a solid program in traditional and contemporary philosophy. Areas of recent and current faculty research include the following: belief ascription, the nature of singular propositions, time and time travel, modality and belief, philosophical problems of cognitive psychology, reference and attribution, God and modality, God and evil, divine freedom, theories of punishment and criminal law, freedom and coercion, mercy and legal justice, evolution and morality, Kantian autonomy, liberalism, social justice and basic rights, growth and character of experimentation, the rise of American biology, the roles of research traditions and working hypotheses in science, the character of theoretical entities, observation and justification, coherence theories of knowledge, foundational theories of knowledge, theories of rational choice, knowledge of oneself, the riddles of induction, skepticism, analyticity, the notion of following rules, Plato, Aristotle, ancient theories of freedom and determination, critical theory, 19th-century idealism, actualism, causality, space, time and continuity, Kant, Carnap, Quine, and Rawls.
A selection of books and forthcoming books of the faculty include the following: Perception, Reason, and Knowledge (editor); Fundamentals of Logic (co-author); Introduction to Symbolic Logic; Dear Carnap, Dear Van: The Quine-Carnap Correspondence and Related Work (editor); Analyticity: The Carnap-Quine Debate; Naming and Believing; Welches sind die wirk-lichen Fortschritte, die die Metaphysik seit Leibnitzen und Wolf’s Zeiten in Deutschland gemacht hat? (translator, editor); Perpetual Peace and Other Essays (translator); Transforming Traditions in American Biology, 1880–1915; Defining Biology: Lectures From the 1890’s (editor); The Coming of Age of American Biology; The Emergence of Biology in America (co-editor); Kant: The Philosophy of Right; Retribution, Justice and Therapy: Essays in the Philosophy of Law; Evolution, Morality and the Meaning of Life; The Philosophy of Law: An Introduction to Jurisprudence (co-author); Agency and Integrality: Philosophical Themes in the Ancient Discussions of Determinism and Responsibility; Retribution Reconsidered; The Continuous and the Discrete: Ancient Physical Theories from a Contemporary Perspective; Inquiry, Forms, and Substances: A Study in Plato’s Metaphysics and Epistemology; Partisan or Neutral? The Futility of Public Political Theory.
The department has also developed interdisciplinary programs linking philosophy with other disciplines, e.g., philosophy of law and history and philosophy of science and technology.
Omnibus Graduate Courses: See omnibus graduate courses that may be offered.
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