Philosophy
The Washington University Philosophy Department houses two PhD programs: a program in Philosophy — with strengths in philosophy of mind, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and the history of philosophy — and a special interdisciplinary program in Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology (PNP) that maintains a core faculty in philosophy and draws on Washington University's exceptional psychology and neuroscience programs.
The department accepts about 10% of the applicants to these PhD programs and maintains about 25 students in both programs. We are especially open to interdisciplinary work, and we are committed to providing methodologically and substantively broad training. We welcome applicants from a wide range of backgrounds, and the most successful applicants have evidence of philosophical talent and promise.
Contact Info
| Phone: | 314-935-6670 |
| Email: | philosophy@wustl.edu |
| Website: | http://philosophy.wustl.edu/graduate-programs |
Chair, Director of Philosophy
Lori Watson
Professor
PhD, University of Illinois-Chicago
Director of Graduate Studies
Matt McGrath
Professor
PhD, Brown University
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Anne Margaret Baxley
Associate Professor
PhD, University of California, San Diego
Director of Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology
Casey O'Callaghan
Professor
PhD, Princeton University
Department Faculty
Anne Baril
Lecturer
PhD, University of Arizona
Eric Brown
Associate Professor
PhD, University of Chicago
Rebecca "Becko" Copenhaver
Professor
PhD, Cornell University
Carl Craver
Professor
PhD, University of Pittsburgh
Marina DiMarco
Assistant Professor
PhD, University of Pittsburgh
Jason Gardner
Lecturer
PhD, Washington University in St. Louis
Allan Hazlett
Professor
PhD, Brown University
John Heil
Professor
PhD, Vanderbilt University
Brett Hyde
Associate Professor
PhD, Rutgers University
David Kinney
Assistant Professor
PhD, London School of Economics
Nicholas Koziolek
Senior Lecturer
PhD, University of Chicago
Jonathan Kvanvig
Professor
PhD, University of Notre Dame
Ron Mallon
Professor
PhD, Rutgers University
Anya Plutynski
Professor
PhD, University of Pennsylvania
Kit Wellman
Professor
PhD, University of Arizona
Emeritus Faculty
Stanley Paulson
Professor Emeritus
PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Jerome P. Schiller
Professor Emeritus
PhD, Harvard University
PHIL 5000 Independent Work
Prerequisites: junior standing and permission of the department.
Credit 6 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5001 Proseminar in Philosophy
The chief aim of the seminar is to improve students' philosophical skills, especially their philosophy writing skills. This seminar is limited to first year Philosophy and PNP graduate students.
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall
PHIL 5002 Survey Seminar
This is an advanced survey of one of several basic areas of philosophy, covering a different topic each semester. Prerequisite: enrollment in Philosophy or PNP PhD program or permission of instructor.
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5003 Research Seminar
Students in this course have intensive focus on a specific philosophical topic, question, or figure, with an emphasis on philosophical research methods and writing. Prerequisite: enrollment in Philosophy or PNP PhD program or permission of instructor.
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5010 Topics in Philosophy of Language
This course allows students to explore topics in philosophy of language.
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5011 Topics in Analytic Philosophy
This course allows students to explore topics in analytic philosophy.
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5012 Topics in Philosophy of Mind
This course allows students to explore topics in the philosophy of mind.
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall
PHIL 5013 Topics in Philosophy of Psychology
This course allows students to explore multiple topics in the philosophy of psychology.
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5014 Topics in Philosophy of Science
This course allows students to explore topics in the philosophy of science.
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5015 Topics in Ethical Theory
This course allows students to explore topics in ethical theory.
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5016 Topics in Social and Political Philosophy
This course allows students to explore topics in social and political philosophy.
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5017 Topics in Philosophy of Law
This course allows students to explore topics in the philosophy of law.
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5018 Seminar: Metaphysics
This course is a seminar in mataphysics.
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5019 Seminar
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall
PHIL 5040 Tutorial in Philosophy
Manditory attendance required for graduate students in Philosophy and PNP. Weekly presentations by faculty members with a discussion in the latter half of meeting. Undergraduates majoring in Philosophy or PNP are encouraged to attend.
Credit 0 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5090 Formal Methods for Philosophy
This course is an advanced course exploring formal methods in both logic and confirmation theory. It begins with an introduction to metatheory, which is explored in more depth in the 403-404 sequence on Mathematical Logic, addressing the basic metatheory for logic in addition to alternatives to standard first-order logic. The second part of the course focuses on modal and other intensional logics. The final part of the course focuses on non-monotonic logics, focusing especially on Bayesian confirmation theory and decision theory. Prerequisite: 6 units of philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: NSM, AN Art: NSM
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5130 Advanced Metaphysics
Through readings from both classical and contemporary sources, a single traditional metaphysical concern will be made the subject of careful and detailed analytic attention. Possible topics include such concepts as substance, category, cause, identity, reality, and possibility, and such positions as metaphysical realism, idealism, materialism, relativism, and irrealism. Prerequisites: one course in Philosophy at the 300-level, graduate standing, or permission of the instructor.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
Typical periods offered: Fall
PHIL 5151 Advanced Epistemology
Competing theories of knowledge and belief justification will be considered. Careful attention will be given to selected problems such as skepticism, certainty, foundations, coherence, perception, induction.
Credit 0 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall
PHIL 5210 Seminar: Scientific Explanation
This course will be a deep dive on recent work on mechanistic theories of scientific explanation in the context of the wider effort to build a theory of scientific explanation. Students are encouraged to approach the subject matter of this course with some particular, actual scientific explanation in mind. We will use the philosophical material as a critical lens on student-specific research topics. Students are expected to be self-driven and active participants in their own learning, and they should be willing to explore independent avenues of research as we read together. Prerequisite: Gradate standing or permission of instructor.
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5240 Metaethics
Ethics asks questions about right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and vice. Metaethics asks questions about ethics, including questions about whether we have any reason to do the right thing or to be virtuous, questions about whether it is possible to know the answer to ethical questions, and questions about what we mean by such ethical terms as right and wrong or good and bad. Influential metaethical views include relativism (on which ethical judgments are only true or false relative to an individual or culture) and moral skepticism (on which ethical knowledge is impossible). This course will introduce metaethics through an examination of selected texts and questions. Prerequisites: One previous course in philosophy at the 300 level, graduate standing, or permission of instructor.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5315 Normative Ethical Theory
An exploration of the three major normative ethical theories debated by philosophers in the last hundred years: Kantian ethics, utilitarianism, and virtue theory. Authors covered in the course may include: Henry Sidgwick, R. M. Hare, R. B. Brandt, John Rawls, Bernard Williams, Philippa Foot, Thomas Nagel, Christine Korsgaard, Michael Slote, and Barbara Herman. Prerequisites: one course in Philosophy at the 300-level, graduate standing, or permission of the instructor.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
Typical periods offered: Spring
PHIL 5400 Advanced Political and Social Philosophy
A selective investigation of one or two advanced topics in the philosophical understanding of society, government, and culture. Readings may include both historical and contemporary materials. Possible topics include: liberalism, socialism, communitarianism, citizenship, nationalism, cosmopolitanism, social contract theory, anarchism, and the rights of cultural minorities. Prerequisites: one course in Philosophy at the 300-level, graduate standing, or permission of the instructor.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
Typical periods offered: Fall
PHIL 5490 History of Analytic Philosophy
This course will begin with the reaction of G.E. Moore to the dominant idealism of the 19th century, together with the advances in formal approaches launched by Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell. It will engage in the rise of ordinary language philosophy through the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as the important influence of the Vienna Circle and the rise and fall of Logical Positivism/Empiricism, culminating in the resurgence of metaphysics with the work of Saul Kripke. The course will close with a look at philosophy that is still in the analytic tradition after analytic philosophy itself had been abandoned. Prerequisites: One previous course in philosophy at the 300 level, graduate standing, or permission of instructor.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5530 Hellenistic Philosophy
This course explores Hellenistic philosophy.
Credit 0 units.
Typical periods offered: Spring
PHIL 5570 Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
An in-depth investigation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, one of the most important books in the history of Western philosophy. Some supplementary readings from other philosophers will be used to situate Kant's work in a systematic and historical context, to present some 'Kantian' positions in current philosophy, and to bring in some important contrasting views and criticisms. Prerequisites: one course in Philosophy at the 300-level, graduate standing, or permission of the instructor.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5651 Topics in the History of Philosophy:
Study of individual philosophers or themes from the ancient, medieval, and/or modern periods. Examples: Spinoza, St. Thomas Aquinas, neo-Platonism, universals in ancient and medieval thought, ancient and modern theories of space and time. Prerequisite: 6 units in philosophy, or permission of instructor.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5700 Seminar in Ethics
seminar in ethics
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5740 Seminar in Metaphysics
Prerequisite: graduate standing or permission of the instructor.
Credit 3 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 5901 Res Master Level
Credit 12 units.
PHIL 5910 Res Doctoral Level
Dissertation/Research
Credit 12 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 7883 Master's Continuing Student Status
This course is for master's-level continuing student status.
Credit 0 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 7885 Masters Nonresident
This course is for master's students not in residence.
Credit 0 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 8000 Dissertation Seminar
Advanced research training and professional development for students in the 4th, 5th, and 6th years of the Philosophy and PNP PhD programs.
Credit 0 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 8884 Doctoral Continuing Student Status
This course is to indicate doctoral continuing student status.
Credit 0 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring
PHIL 8886 Doctoral Nonresident
This course is for doctoral students who are not in residence at the time.
Credit 0 units.
Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring