Learning Outcomes for Philosophy Ph.D.

PLO 1. Core Knowledge

• At the end of our graduate program, a student should have acquired a body of core knowledge in philosophy. He or she should be familiar with many of the important periods in western philosophy (e.g. ancient philosophy, medieval philosophy, early modern philosophy, Kant and German philosophy after Kant, the history of early analytic philosophy). In addition, a student who has completed our graduate program should have a general knowledge of the major trends in the core areas of contemporary philosophy (ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology).

PLO 2. Independent Research

• At the end of our graduate program, a student should have acquired the philosophical and writing skills required to produce original independent research that satisfies the standards of clarity, argumentative rigor, and scholarly competence operative in professional philosophy.

PLO 3. Professionalism

• At the end of our graduate program, a student should have submitted work to, and ideally presented the work at, a professional philosophy conference. In addition, a student should have submitted work for publication (and, ideally, had that work accepted for publication) in a recognized professional philosophy journal.

PLO 4. Pedagogy

• By the end of our graduate program, students are normally expected to have completed the following: (i) submitted work to, and ideally presented work at, a professional philosophy conference; (ii) submitted work for publication (and, ideally, had that work accepted for publication) in a recognized professional philosophy journal; and (iii) completed a designated portfolio of materials relevant to entering the academic job market (such as a teaching statement, a research statement, an academic CV, a diversity statement, and so on).