This is an exciting time to study philosophy at JHU. With the recent endowment by William Miller, the Department has been able to initiate many changes to the graduate program, including expanding the faculty in our areas of strength and beyond. We provide a guaranteed funding package for six years, including an initial two years without teaching responsibilities and two further semesters for research only. Our newly designed Proseminar provides two years of training in how to research and write for publication in top philosophy journals. Our new Research Seminar provides a venue for third and fourth year students to workshop their Qualifying Paper and first dissertation chapter. Further seminars prepare students for the academic and non-academic job market. There are also several new workshops, including one in history of philosophy, in which students can learn about faculty research and contribute to shaping their professors’ work in progress. We strive to support a diverse community of students in an atmosphere of cooperation and collaboration in which a variety of approaches to philosophy are respected.

Usually there are about 15 graduate students taking courses and seminars, and another 15 at various stages in the writing of their dissertations. Because classes are small, we look for students who wish to take advantage of the individual attention available here. The department’s purpose is to provide opportunities for students to develop special interests within a program that also ensures breadth of knowledge. We offer classes, seminars, and directed study in the history of ancient and modern philosophy, and in the systematic areas of philosophy of mind, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of science, philosophy of physics, and philosophy of language. Courses with relevance to philosophy are frequently offered in other departments, and in certain circumstances these may be used toward the PhD or MA course requirements in philosophy. We very much encourage interdisciplinarity, and students may choose to pursue a “focus” in an adjacent field such as Classics or Cognitive Science.