Welcome to the philosophy department! Our department strives to create a welcoming environment for everybody. We are especially keen to make the department, and the major, a place where people from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in philosophy feel supported and welcome.

Information for First Year Students

If you’re like most students entering college, you probably haven’t taken a philosophy class. So, where should you start? The short answer is: with any course that looks interesting to you. No kidding! Philosophy isn’t like math of chemistry where you must have taken Class A in order to understand Class B. With Philosophy, you can dive in anywhere.

Having said that, you might consider starting with a 100-level class. All our 100-level courses spend time talking about and teaching students how to write philosophy papers while giving students an introduction to a particular topic in philosophy (we don’t have any survey courses). If you’re unsure about your writing, then a 100-level course is a great place to start. We offer two or three Argument & Inquiry seminars year and then a series of other courses at the 100-level.

200-level courses do not have pre-reqs, so if there’s a topic that interests you and you feel Ok about your writing, then you are welcome to start with a 200-level class. The main difference between 100-level classes and 200-level classes is that the latter don’t tend to spend time teaching writing and they may not offer a chance to rewrite a graded assignment.

300-level classes do have a pre-requisite: one prior course in philosophy. These courses tend to dive into more challenging material and usually have one or two major writing assignments.

There is no particular sequence to the major, though of course things you learn in one course may well help you understand and contextualize what happens in other courses. If you have a particular interest in Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Science or the Philosophy of Math, you may want to think about taking PHIL 210: Logic sooner rather than later since the tools you learn in that class get used a lot in these areas.

Thinking about majoring?

Why would someone want to take philosophy courses…let alone major in it? The quick answer is, “Because they really like it.” And you won’t know if you really like it until you try it. So take a philosophy course! It also doesn’t that philosophy majors do well after college. Hard to believe, right? But it’s true! Just take a look at these resources:

If you have questions about the department, you can write the Chair Daniel Groll or our Student Departmental Adviser, Eric Lail