Timeline
| Junior Year | Senior Year | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May | November | January | February - March | April |
| Submit Senior Paper proposals | Honors Thesis committees formed | Comprehensive exams | ||
Description
Philosophy courses provide the opportunity for the development of a critical and unified understanding of experience and nature. This is accomplished through their concern—from both historical and contemporary perspectives—with the ethical, social and political, aesthetic, religious, metaphysical, epistemological, and scientific dimensions of existence.
The Philosophy major
A minimum of 36 credits in philosophy including: Four courses in the history of philosophy: 201, 202, 303, and 304; two 300 and above courses other than 303 and 304; two other courses 100 and above; the four credit Senior Paper; for those who qualify (see below), the four credit Honors Senior Thesis.
The Philosophy minor
A minimum of 20 credits in philosophy, including at least two of the following courses: Phil 201, 202, 303, and 304.
The Senior Paper and the Honors Senior Thesis and Oral Examination
- By the end of their junior year, all philosophy majors will submit a proposal for a Senior Paper to be approved by the department as a whole. This proposal should outline the intended project, which can be based on an outstanding course paper, and include an annotated bibliography as well as the student's choice of the professor under whose direction the student wants to write the Senior paper.
- The department will review the Senior Paper proposals, offer criticisms and suggestions and agree on which professor will work with which student. The Senior Paper will be due on the Friday before Thanksgiving break. There will be no oral examination of Senior Papers.
- During Thanksgiving break the department will grade the Senior Papers and decide which students merit being invited to extend their Senior Paper into an Honors Senior Thesis. Those invitations will be sent out by the Friday of the first week following Thanksgiving break. Within a week of their invitation, students will decide whether to accept it, and those who do will suggest First, Second and Third readers to the department. The department will meet in January to agree on the most appropriate First, Second, and Third readers. The due date for the Honors Senior Thesis will be the end of the second week of April (or the corresponding date for those theses turned in during Fall semester).
- There will be an hour-long Oral Examination of all Honor Senior Theses scheduled during the second and third weeks of April (or the corresponding weeks of Fall semester for Fall graduates). The Oral Examination will be open to the public and all philosophy majors will be invited to attend.
The Comprehensive Examinations
- Comprehensive examinations in Philosophy will consist of four exams. The first two exams will propose two questions in Ancient Philosophy and two questions in Medieval Philosophy, with students choosing to write on one in each examination. The third exam will propose two questions in modern philosophy from Descartes through Kant of which the student will choose one to answer in writing. The fourth exam will propose two integrative questions covering the history of philosophy as a whole from which each student will select one to discuss orally with a panel of instructors.
- The first two exams will be offered the last Friday in February, the third a week later. The fourth will be scheduled at a mutually agreeable time during the same semester. The written examinations can be taken upon completion of the history of philosophy sequence up through Kant, and can be retaken, if necessary, until the final semester of a major's senior year.
Distribution Credit
All four-credit courses in philosophy meet the equivalent of three periods per week. Courses will apply to the philosophy and religion distribution area for those students who entered before fall semester 2002. Otherwise, they will apply to the humanities distribution area, except for Philosophy 109, which will apply to the quantitative distribution area, and Philosophy 225, Critical Race Theory, and Philosophy 235, Philosophy of Feminism, that can apply for either humanities or alternative voices.