Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy

Entering PhD students must have a Bachelor of Arts degree or its equivalent from an accredited institution. They should have a solid background in philosophy, ordinarily an undergraduate major, including coursework in the history of ancient and early modern European philosophy as well as in metaphysics, epistemology, logic, ethics, and social-political philosophy.

Required Courses for the PhD

All requirements for the MA described below must be satisfied as first stage of doctoral work. A total of 48 semester hours beyond a bachelor's degree are required for the PhD Students are also required to complete seven courses in the areas of:

• Ancient
• Medieval
• Modern
• Continental
• Analytic
• Metaphysics/epistemology
• Ethics/social-political philosophy

PHIL 590: Dissertation Proposal Seminar, a non-credit semester long course devoted to the writing of the dissertation proposal, is also a requirement for those entering on or after Fall 2014.
Foreign Language Requirement

A reading knowledge of one foreign language, e.g., German, French, Greek or Latin, is normally required for the doctorate, normally one that the student will use as a research tool for the dissertation. The requirement must be met at two levels: (1) basic language competence and (2) facility with the language in doing philosophy research. The dissertation topic may also require knowledge of additional foreign languages. In exceptional cases students may petition that the research tool requirement be fulfilled in another way than by knowledge of a foreign language, e.g., by a knowledge of statistics.