Philosophy

Program Offered: M.A.
http://ase.tufts.edu/philosophy/graduate/
617.627.3230

The Master of Arts (M.A.) program in philosophy, perennially the highest-ranked of its kind in the United States, is designed for students who wish to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy but whose undergraduate preparation in the subject might not qualify them for first-tier doctoral programs. Students with other career plans are admitted as space permits.

The department—which has an excellent record of placing its students in the top philosophy Ph.D. programs in the country—has special strengths in philosophy of mind; philosophy of science; political and social philosophy (including feminism and philosophy of race); ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics and epistemology; philosophy of language; and continental philosophy. Each year at least six seminars are offered, typically on faculty research interests, which range from analytic metaphysics and the philosophy of biology to the history of ethics and philosophy and film.

Students are required to complete twelve courses, including an intensive logic course, a graduate writing seminar, and an area of strength exam course. Students must also pass a "core area of strength" exam. No thesis is required.

Philosophy: Faculty

Jody Azzouni
Ph.D., City University of New York
Philosophy of language, philosophy of logic, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science

Nancy Bauer
Ph.D., Harvard University
Feminism, existentialism and phenomenology, ordinary language philosophy, philosophy and film

Avner Baz, Director of Graduate Studies
Ph.D., University of Illinois
Ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, Kant, Wittgenstein, ordinary language philosophy

Daniel C. Dennett
D.Phil., University of Oxford
Philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology

Brian Epstein
Ph.D., Stanford University
Metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of social science

Patrick Forber
Ph.D., Stanford University
Philosophy of biology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of language

Ray S. Jackendoff
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Natural language semantics, syntax, the lexicon, the language faculty, music cognition, social cognition, consciousness

Erin Kelly, Chair
Ph.D., Harvard University
Moral philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of law

Lionel McPherson
Ph.D., Harvard University
Ethics, political and social philosophy

Christiana Olfert
Ph.D., Columbia University
Ancient philosophy, early modern philosophy, ethics

George E. Smith
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Philosophy of science, logic

Stephen L. White
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
Philosophy of mind, epistemology, meta-ethics, aesthetics