More about our degrees

You will complete a minimum of 180 credits, 50 of which will be taken in Philosophy, and attain a cumulative and major/program grade point average of 2.00 to earn your degree.

Your opportunity to complete a challenging individual research project and to work independently under the direction of one of your professors.

Application to the major: To be accepted to the program, students must have a cumulative and major/program grade point average of 3.5. Students must be recommended by a Philosophy faculty member who will take responsibility for directing the student’s honors thesis, and the recommendation must be approved by the department chairperson.

Interested students apply in spring quarter of their junior year or fall quarter of the senior year. Departmental honors students take 10 credits of designated honors courses (in addition to the 50 credits required for the major) and write a 25 to 40 page thesis.

University Honors Program graduates may earn a philosophy major by taking an additional 35 credit hours, which include the following required courses:

• Intellectual Traditions track, PHIL 2600, PHIL 4850, and 25 credit hours of approved electives.
• Innovations Track, PHIL 2600, PHIL 3020, PHIL 4850, and 20 credit hours of approved electives.
• Society, Policy and Citizenship track, PHIL 2600, PHIL 4850, and 25 credit hours of approved electives.

University Honors Program graduates may earn a philosophy major with departmental honors by fulfilling the requirements for the BA with University Honors described above plus an additional 10 credits (PHIL 4770, PHIL 4780, PHIL 4790) and completion of a 25 to 40 page thesis.

The Philosophy departmental honors major offers an opportunity for students to complete a challenging individual research project and to work independently under the direction of one of their professors.

Application to the major: To be accepted to the program, students must have a cumulative and major/program grade point average of 3.5. Students must be recommended by a Philosophy faculty member who will take responsibility for directing the student’s honors thesis, and the recommendation must be approved by the department chairperson. Interested students should apply in spring quarter of the junior year or fall quarter of the senior year.

Our program is designed to reinforce a student's major area of study, to complement the acquisition of professional skills, and to broaden intellectual horizons. Many students develop an appreciation for philosophical thinking in their Core courses and wish to bring the depth and rigor of philosophical questioning to their other areas of academic interest. The Minor Program allows this dimension of their work to be represented in their undergraduate degree.

Value: A minor in philosophy reinforces a major academic field of study by bringing fundamental questions and broad perspectives to bear upon that field. Philosophy students develop the ability to critique the problems and presuppositions that are at the heart of other areas of study. Philosophy provides ways of raising questions of ethics and values that bring an insightfulness to both scholarship and professional development. Students who are seeking careers that require creative and critical thinking, persuasive and precise writing, and the ability to formulate and critique complex arguments find these skills at work in the study of philosophy. The addition of a Philosophy minor distinguishes our students as graduates of a Jesuit Catholic university.

Flexibility: Once you complete UCOR 2500 and UCOR 2900 (or 2910 or 2920), you can choose any four 5-credit Philosophy electives to complete the minor. Students who have completed the University Honors Program typically need only an additional 14 Philosophy elective credits for the minor. For information regarding the Minor, please contact the Department Chair or Administrative Assistant.

An introduction to elementary symbolic logic to help students develop their skills in evaluating and constructing arguments. Topics covered include propositional logic (truth-tables and natural deduction), predicate logic, inductive and causal reasoning, and informal fallacies.

The foundational course in the history of philosophy sequence examines selected works by Plato, Confucius, and Aristotle. In addition, we will read short selections from the Upanishads and discuss women philosophers who are often excluded from standard surveys. The major theme of the course is ancient perspectives on what it means to live a good life.(Counts toward the Ethics minor.)

This course will examine issues that lie at the intersection of philosophy and psychology. Our point of entry will be a discussion of the self, and how it is described by philosophers and psychologists. From there, we will discuss the connection between the self and well-being, on the one hand, and psychopathology, on the other. We will discuss what Parnas and Sass dub “self pathologies,” and from there move to a discussion of metaphysical, multicultural, and ethical issues surrounding psychopathology. Lastly, we will explore topics of self-knowledge, empathy, and neurodivergence.   X: PSYC 3910

What is it to study environmental philosophy in a time of ecological crisis? How is the ecological crisis related to other crises like economic inequity, racism, and misogyny? We will attempt to explore these questions at a sufficiently radical level and do so by exploring underrepresented voices and issues like indigenous thought, anarchic thought, Buddhist thought, eco-feminist thought, and other forms of countercultural resistance.

What does it mean to change history, and how is political transformation possible? What is intersectional feminism, and how do we build solidarity across movements for social justice around the globe? For over 50 years, activist and scholar Angela Davis has organized and theorized resistance to white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, capitalism, imperialism, and carceral culture. In this course, we will explore Davis’s critical examinations of these structures of power. We will also study how her scholarship and activism teaches strategies of resistance and new ways to imagine our shared futures, including Black, intersectional, and abolition feminisms.