Overview

Our department explores contemporary philosophical questions through the lens of the history of philosophy. We have broad research and teaching interests in the Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Modern Philosophy, and a variety of topics in American Pragmatism, Analytic Philosophy, and Continental Philosophy. Our students achieve an understanding of the central figures and texts in the history of philosophy, the four traditional theories of ethics together with an understanding of the nature of justice, and the formal techniques used to evaluate arguments. They are taught to carefully read, comprehend and compress written material, to compare and contrast a range of positions on a given topic, to defend a specific position on a topic, and to write clearly and in an organized fashion.