Philosophy

Philosophy: Introduction

Faculty Affiliation

Arts and Science

Degree Programs

Philosophy

MA

  • Concentration: Philosophy of Science

PhD

Combined Degree Programs

STG, Law, Juris Doctor / Philosophy, PhD

Collaborative Specializations

The following collaborative specializations are available to students in participating degree programs as listed below:

Overview

Philosophy has been taught at the University of Toronto since 1843. Much has changed in that time, but the department remains Canada’s preeminent philosophy department. It is an international leader in the history of philosophy — especially ancient and medieval philosophy — as well as ethics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind. In all of these areas, department members take contemporary philosophical problems and their historical antecedents to illuminate one another.

The department’s most distinctive strength is its broad coverage of the history of philosophy. While peer departments usually have one or two experts in a few historical periods, U of T has specialists in every area of the history of Western philosophy, as well as in aspects of the history of non-Western philosophy. This historical focus engages with other areas of strength: ethics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind.

Many U of T faculty working in these areas also study their history; they use that study to inform their contributions to contemporary debates. At the same time, these historians of philosophy benefit from and contribute to ground-breaking work in systematic philosophy. This integration of historical and systematic philosophy sets this department apart from other top philosophy departments where the history of philosophy is often segregated from the rest of the discipline.

Contact and Address

Web: philosophy.utoronto.ca
Email: graduate.phil@utoronto.ca
Telephone: (416) 978-3312
Fax: (416) 978-8703

Department of Philosophy
University of Toronto
Jackman Humanities Building (JHB)
Room 410, 170 St. George Street
Toronto, Ontario M5R 2M8
Canada

Philosophy: Graduate Faculty

Full Members

Ainslie, Donald - BSc, MA, PhD
Allen, James - BA, PhD
Barney, Rachel - BA, PhD
Black, Deborah - BA, MA, PhD
Caie, Michael - PhD
Charlow, Nathan - BA, MA, PhD
Clark, Philip - BA, MA, PhD
Comay, Rebecca - BA, MA, PhD
Das, Nilanjan - BA, MA, PhD
Dickie, Imogen - BA, BPhil, DPhil
Dyzenhaus, David - BA, LLB, DPhil
Fraser, Chris - PhD
Ganeri, Jonardon - MMath, DPhil
Gelber, Jessica - PhD
Gerson, Lloyd - BA, MA, PhD, FRSC
Gibbs, Robert - BA, MA, PhD
Gooch, Paul William - BA, MA, PhD
Heath, Joseph - BA, MA, PhD, FRSC
Hellie, Benjamin - BA, PhD
Huber, Franz - MA, PhD
Hurka, Thomas - BA, BPhil, DPhil, FRSC
King, Peter - BA, PhD
Kingwell, Mark - BA, MA, MPH, DFA, PhD
Kremer, Philip - BS, PhD
Matthen, Mohan - PhD, FRSC
Miller, Michael - AB, AM, PhD
Misak, Cheryl - BA, MA, DPhil, FRSC
Moreau, Sophia - BA, BPhil, PhD, JD
Mullin, Amy - BA, PhD (Graduate Director)
Nagel, Jennifer - BA, MA, PhD
Nefsky, Julia - BA, PhD
Pasternak, Avia - MPA, PhD
Pickavé, Martin - MA, PhD (Chair and Graduate Chair)
Raffman, Diana - BA, PhD, FRSC
Rattan, Gurpreet - BSc, AM, MPH, PhD
Ripstein, Arthur S. - BA, MA, LLM, PhD, Howard Beck, Q.C. Chair
Rosenthal, Michael - PhD
Rozemond, Marleen - BA, PhD
Sedivy, Sonia - BA, PhD
Sepielli, Andrew - AB, JD, PhD
Smith, Brian Cantwell - BS, MS, PhD
Stang, Nicholas - AB, PhD
Tenenbaum, Sergio - MA, PhD
Walsh, Denis - BA, BSc, MPH, PhD, PhD
Ware, Owen - BA, PhD
Weisberg, Jonathan - BMath, BPhil, PhD
Wilson, Jessica Marie - BA, PhD
Yi, Byeong-Uk - BA, MA, MA, PhD

Members Emeriti

Allen, Derek - BA, BPhil, MA, DPhil
Brown, James - BA, MA, PhD, FRSC
De Sousa, Ronald - BA, PhD, FRSC
Goldstick, Daniel - BA, BPhil, DPhil
Hutchinson, Douglas S - BA, BPhil, DPhil
Inwood, Brad - BA, MA, PhD, FRSC
Katz, Bernard - BA, MA, PhD
Lange, Lynda - BA, MA, PhD
Seager, William Edward - BA, MA, PhD
Stefanovic, Ingrid - BA, MA, PhD
Urquhart, Alasdair - MA, MA, PhD

Associate Members

Aronowitz, Sara - PhD
Babic, Boris - PhD, JD
Dika, Tarek - MPH, PhD
Freschi, Elisa - PhD
Goetschel, Willi - PhD
Howard, Nathan - BA, MA, MPH, DPhil
Larsen, Rasmus Rosenberg - BA, MA, PhD
Paris, William - MA, PhD
Teitel, Trevor - PhD
Vold, Karina - BA, PhD

Philosophy: Philosophy MA, PhD Courses

Not all courses are offered every year. Please consult the department's website, which lists the courses the department will offer this year as well as those offered by other departments that may be taken for philosophy credit.

Required Courses

Course CodeCourse Title
PHL1111HPhD Proseminar
PHL2222HMA Proseminar I
PHL2223HMA Proseminar II
PHL3000HMA Professional Development Workshop

Concentration: Philosophy of Science

Course CodeCourse Title
PHL2198HAdvanced Introduction to the Philosophy of Science

Reading Courses

Course CodeCourse Title
PHL1000H
Reading Course
PHL1000YReading Course
PHL1001H
Reading Course
PHL1001YReading Course
PHL1500H
Reading Course
PHL1500YReading Course

History of Philosophy

Classical Greek and Roman Philosophy

Course CodeCourse Title
PHL2000H
Early Greek Philosophy
PHL2002H
Plato
PHL2003H
Aristotle
PHL2005H
Seminar in Plato
PHL2007H
Seminar in Aristotle
PHL2009H
Seminar in Greek Philosophy
PHL2010H
Late Greek Philosophy

East Asian Philosophy

Course CodeCourse Title
PHL2013HTopics in Chinese Philosophy
PHL2014HTopics in Chinese Moral Psychology
PHL2016H
Taoism: Philosophy and Religion

South Asian Philosophy

Course CodeCourse Title
PHL2018HSouth Asian Philosophy
PHL2019HTopics in South Asian Philosophy

Medieval Philosophy

Course CodeCourse Title
MST3301H
Themes in Medieval Philosophy
MST3309H
Birth of the Will: Augustine and Anselm
MST3311H
Topics in Medieval Metaphysics
MST3322H
William of Ockham
MST3327H
Free Will and Human Action in Medieval Philosophy
MST3346HMedieval Islamic Philosophy

Early Modern Philosophy

Course CodeCourse Title
PHL2051H
The Rationalists
PHL2055H
The Empiricists
PHL2057H
Seminar in Seventeenth-and Eighteenth-Century Philosophy
PHL2063H
Kant's Ethics

Feminist Philosophy

Course CodeCourse Title
PHL2140H
Topics in Feminist Philosophy

Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Philosophy

Course CodeCourse Title
PHL2070HTopics in Philosophy of Race
PHL2076HHegel
PHL2078H
Kierkegaard
PHL2079H
Marxist Philosophy
PHL2084H
Seminar in Nineteenth-Century Continental Philosophy
PHL2085H
Husserl
PHL2088HHeidegger
PHL2089H
Seminar in Twentieth-Century Continental Philosophy
PHL2090H
Hermeneutics
PHL2091H
The Critical Theory of Society
PHL2092HPragmatism
PHL2093H
Frege
PHL2094H
Russell
PHL2095H
Wittgenstein
PHL2096H
Early Analytic Philosophy
PHL2097H
Later Analytic Philosophy
PHL2192H
Seminar in Analytic Philosophy
PHL2193H
Topics in Analytic Philosophy

History and Philosophy of Science and Technology

For MA students in the Philosophy of Science concentration.

Course CodeCourse Title
HPS2000HHistory of Mathematics
HPS2001HHistory of Physics
HPS2003HHistory of Biology
HPS2004HHistory of Medicine
HPS2008HHistory of Psychology
HPS2009HHistory and Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Problems of Philosophy

Metaphysics and Epistemology

Course CodeCourse Title
PHL2101H
Seminar in Metaphysics
PHL2105H
Topics in Metaphysics
PHL2111H
Seminar in Epistemology
PHL2115H
Topics in Epistemology
PHL2117H
Formal Epistemology
PHL2119H
Philosophical Foundations of Multidisciplinary Studies
PHL2171H
Philosophy of Mind
PHL2172H
Seminar in Philosophy of Mind
PHL2175H
Philosophy of Perception

Logic and the Philosophy of Language

Course CodeCourse Title
PHL2120H
Introductory Mathematical Logic
PHL2122H
Advanced Logic
PHL2124H
Seminar in Logic
PHL2125H
Many Valued and Modal Logics
PHL2126H
Philosophy of Logic
PHL2127H
Philosophy of Mathematics
PHL2130H
Topics in Informal Logic
PHL2137H
Philosophy of Action
PHL2190H
Philosophy of Language
PHL2191H
Seminar in the Philosophy of Language
PHL2197H
Foundations of Computation and Information

Value Theory

Course CodeCourse Title
PHL2131H
Ethics
PHL2132H
Seminar in Ethics
PHL2135H
Metaethics
PHL2141H
Political Philosophy
PHL2142H
Seminar in Political Philosophy
PHL2143HSocial Philosophy
PHL2144H
Seminar in Social Philosophy
PHL2145H
Bioethics
PHL2146Y
Topics in Bioethics
PHL2148H
Philosophy of Law
JPL2149H
Legal Theory
PHL2151H
Aesthetics
PHL2152H
Philosophy and Teaching

Philosophy of Science

Course CodeCourse Title
JPH2194H
Topics in the History of the Philosophy of Science
PHL2195H
Philosophy of Biology
PHL2196H
Topics in the Philosophy of Science
PHL2198HAdvanced Introduction to the Philosophy of Science
PHL2199H
Seminar in the Philosophy of Science
PHL2200HPhilosophy of Physics

Miscellaneous

Course CodeCourse Title
PHL3101H
Intensive Special Course
PHL4900H
Research Seminar
PHL4901H0Revision Paper Requirement (Credit/No Credit)