• text only
• contact
• search
• sitemap

Graduate Program Concentrations

Graduate Seminars

In addition to the department's emphasis on pluralistic and interdisciplinary approaches, students should also become familiar with the methodologies of professional research within areas of philosophical specialization.  Two Graduate Seminars, required regardless of concentration, offer intensive primary-source reading and critical appreciation of one or more significant philosophical figures or issues.

Concentrations

Concentrations offered are in the areas of Culture/History, Ethics/Practice, and Interpretation/Method.  The Concentrations feature:

• multiple ways to practice or use the history of philosophy and to see philosophy as more than a purely academic discipline
• a notion of practice/ethical activity as something quite other than the mere "application" of preset theoretic concepts
• reflection on the interplay of theory and practice, the conceptual and the empirical, fact and value
• interpretation and hermeneutics conceived in the broader context of general methods of interpretation, and not merely the more restricted senses identified with the continental tradition
• formalism and more stringent analytic methods as only some of the "paths" or "ways" of philosophy
• an atmosphere in which philosophy's commitment to pluralism is celebrated and practiced.

Past disciplinary strengths are not ignored but incorporated with current practices and emerging trends.  In this way, the concentrations aim to support each student's exploration of possibilities and penchants, to promote self-guided reflection on philosophy's disciplines and cultures.

Program of Study

Graduate Seminars     6 hours   
Concentration Electives    6 Hours   
General Electives    Thesis Option   15 Hours
Non-thesis Option   variable   
Thesis or Non-thesis Project    Thesis Option   6 Hours
Non-thesis Option   variable   
Colloquium     2 hours   
Total     35 hours   

---

CHARTING A CONCENTRATION

Choices for:    Choose at least one    Choose at least one   

Culture/
History    

• Plato
• Aristotle
• Continental Philosophy
• British-American Thought

• Philosophical Analysis
• Phenomenology
• Pragmatism
• Philosophical Study of Religion

Ethics/
Practice    

• Social Philosophy
• Ethical Pluralisms
• Ethical Theories & Practices
• Meta-ethics

• Health Care Ethics
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy's Roles in Ethics Across the Disciplines
• Research Ethics

Interpretation/
Method

• Philosophy of Science
• Topics in Metaphysics
• Metalogic
• Logical Theory
• Semeiotics

• Theories of Knowledge
• Philosophy of Expression
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy and Art in the Modern Age
• Problems in the Philosophy of Religion