The faculty in philosophy offers a comprehensive program of doctoral studies covering the principal branches of the subject. The program is organized to give students breadth of background before they specialize. The curriculum, which provides a wide range of options in the later stages of study, is complemented by related advanced-study courses in other disciplines at the Graduate School-New Brunswick. The program leading to the Ph.D. requires 48 credits, or 16 courses, taken at the rate of at least three courses a term. Teaching assistants take only one course a term. In addition, the program requires 24 credits of research. There is no residency requirement.
Applicants with distinguished undergraduate records who lack certain prerequisites for graduate study in philosophy may be accepted if they remedy these deficiencies by taking undergraduate courses without graduate credit.
There are five requirements in the doctoral program in philosophy.
The first, the course requirement, specifies that the student must pass 16 courses (worth 48 credits) that have been approved by the department.
The second is the distribution requirement, which ensures that students have a broad background in philosophy. To meet this standard, students must complete 14 seminars and earn a grade of B in each seminar and an overall average of B+. In addition, students must take two courses on a pass/fail basis (these can include only those courses that are not necessary to fulfill the distribution requirement). In order to fulfill the distribution requirement students will typically take eight 500-level seminars among which are (a) the pro-seminar; (b) ethics; (c) two history of philosophy courses (ancient history, modern history, history of analytic), and (d) one course among four of the following: philosophy of mind, logic, language, science, epistemology, and metaphysics, and six 600-level seminars. A 600-level course can be substituted for a 500- level course with the permission of the graduate director.
The third requirement is the Introductory Logic and Graduate Logic requirements. The Introductory Logic requirement, which by the end of the fall term of the first year, each student must demonstrate competence in introductory symbolic logic, including translations between English and propositional and predicate logic, and proof techniques (i.e., natural deduction or truth trees). The student should, in addition, know the basic concepts of metalogic, i.e., soundness and completeness. Competence can be demonstrated by having taken an appropriate undergraduate course, by taking an exam, by enrollment in the fall in an appropriate graduate logic class, or by other arrangement with the director of graduate studies. The Graduate Logic requirement which, in addition, each student must take at some point before qualification (but not necessarily during their first year), is a graduate course in logic, for instance mathematical logic, philosophically useful logic, or set theory. (As with the other distribution requirements, this requirement may be waived if the student has taken a comparable course elsewhere, at the discretion of the director of graduate studies.)
The fourth requirement is the literature review and dissertation proposal in which the student forms a predissertation committee of three members. With their guidance the student selects a dissertation area/topic and can either write a review of literature relevant to that topic or a first chapter, accompanied by a proposal for his/her dissertation. The student will then meet with their committee for a proposal defense.
After a student has met the first four requirements, the final requirement is the dissertation. To be accepted, the dissertation must be judged publishable as measured by style, scholarship, and originality. The student forms a dissertation committee which may be the predissertation committee plus a member from outside the department (typically from another university). The dissertation is a substantial piece of research. It may consist of a number of papers on related issues or a more sustained book length treatment of a single issue. The dissertation must be successfully defended and all members of the committee must accept it.
For students in the cognitive science program the requirement is 12 courses in philosophy and four courses in cognitive science areas including the cognitive science seminar completed with letter grades. The 500-level distribution requirement is the same as mentioned above with the exception that only one course among three are required. In addition, the student must also complete a cognitive science project.
Normally, the master of arts in philosophy is not offered as a terminal degree and is taken only by students enrolled in the Ph.D. program. To obtain a master of arts degree, a student must satisfy all of the area-distribution course requirements including ten courses approved by the philosophy department earning grades of B or better.
