Undergraduate Program Overview

Philosophy occupies a special place in the undergraduate curriculum at the University of Chicago. There are a variety of reasons for this, beginning with the sorts of undergraduates that the university recruits and the philosophical interests they develop in their freshman Common Core courses. Some of our most intellectually serious and academically motivated students end up gravitating toward the major in philosophy at UChicago, and our program has gained a reputation among undergraduates as being especially challenging and rewarding. The University is also unique because of the remarkable number of philosophers on its faculty, many of whom have primary appointments in other departments, and they contribute to the philosophy curriculum an unusual amount of team-taught, richly interdisciplinary courses.

Members of the faculty of the Department of Philosophy are actively involved in teaching and mentoring three different groups of undergraduates at all times: (1) a large number who first encounter philosophy in one of the sequences of the Core Curriculum, such as Philosophical Perspectives on the Humanities or Human Being and Citizen; (2) students who go on to take a few more philosophy courses; (3) 150-200 majors who decide to make philosophy the focus of their undergraduate studies each year (we have one of the largest undergraduate philosophy programs of any major U.S. university).

The Department of Philosophy course offerings are extremely varied, not only in their content but in their intended constituencies. If you have never taken a Philosophy course before, we strongly recommend that you begin with a 20000-level course. Those courses are normally restricted to college students and are taught at a level that presupposes no prior familiarity with the subject. If you have already taken one or two such courses and remain interested in pursuing the subject more deeply, then you should try a course that is crosslisted at the 30000-level course. Such courses are genuinely "mixed" courses in which our more advanced undergraduates are encouraged to exchange ideas, often in a discussion format, with graduate students and the faculty instructor. It is a tremendous testament to the philosophical caliber of our advanced majors that they are often more than able to hold their own in these classes.

Under special circumstances and with instructor permission, college students who have demonstrated the ability to succeed in 30000-level courses are allowed to take courses offered at a higher (40000- and 50000-) level. Taking these courses can especially make sense for undergraduates planning on applying to graduate school in philosophy.

Philosophy majors can expect to acquire some familiarity with formal logic, to engage with several of the major figures in the history of philosophy, and to be exposed to the current state of play in some core areas of contemporary philosophy. These specialized forms of expertise afford our majors the opportunity to engage in a sustained fashion with the debates that have animated philosophy up through the present day. Not only will majors master the views and arguments set forth in difficult philosophical texts, but they will also learn to probe such philosophical views--to argue for and against them. Most importantly, they will learn to develop and defend their own views on important philosophical topics, both orally and in writing.

Achieving these broader objectives requires that students acquire the following five forms of competence: (1) a broad general understanding of the work of a number of major figures in the history of philosophy; (2) familiarity with some of the central topics across several different areas of philosophy; (3) some familiarity with formal logic, including especially the ability to understand the logical symbolism used in many contemporary philosophical texts; (4) the capacity to faithfully reconstruct and analyze the central arguments in a philosophical text and to challenge them in an intellectually creative and fruitful fashion; and finally (5) the ability to bring the four aforementioned skills simultaneously to bear on the activity of philosophizing, both in writing and in conversations inside and outside of classes.

Upon graduation, our philosophy majors go on to do many things. The three most popular choices of fields for our majors about what to do next are working as a consultant, going to law school, or attending graduate school in Philosophy. Many graduating seniors do consulting work at both small and large national companies. Our students have also enjoyed a consistently excellent acceptance rate at the top law programs in the country. Many others go on to graduate school in philosophy. Here too, we also have a very strong record sending students to major PhD and MA programs. Here is a guide departmental faculty produced about applying to graduate school in Philosophy. Our majors also pursue fulfilling careers in many other fields: everything from business to programming to non-profit work to teaching.

If you are wondering about how to put the skills you have acquired as a philosophy major to work after you graduate, you should be in touch with Career Advancement.

Undergraduates majoring, or thinking about majoring, in philosophy should be aware of a number of resources available to our majors.

First, the department sponsors outreach efforts to women and undergraduate minority students interested in or already studying philosophy. The Department of Philosophy has a chapter within the Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) organization. As part of this job, each year's PhD student MAP coordinator is available to meet with anyone--especially women and minority students--who would like to talk their experiences in the department and/or program, or who would like to talk about pursuing philosophy further. One of the reasons our department created this position is that studies continue to find that philosophy is one of the least proportionate fields in the humanities with respect to diversity, and we want to work on this as much as possible. UChicago Philosophy PhD students associated with MAP have created a guide with their suggestions about applying to graduate school.

Second, undergraduate majors in the department are also welcome to attend any of the events hosted by the department or any of the student organizations listed below. Department-sponsored events include workshop meetings, invited lectures, and conference presentations. 

And third, ALL questions about the undergraduate major--or departmental courses in general--should first be directed to Tyler Zimmer, the Assistant to the Director of Undergraduate Studies (ADUS). Tyler is available to advise all undergraduate philosophers about anything related to the major, minor, allied fields, and related questions. Schedule a Session with Tyler. Tyler's office is in Stuart Hall, Room 202-B. The Department of Philosophy's Faculty Director of Undergraduate Studies for 2024-25 is Professor Agnes Callard.

University of Chicago Undergraduate Philosophy Review is a Registered Student Organization that publishes philosophical content online to their weekly blog and in print for their yearly Spring Review. The group consists of a board of editors, but submission to the journal is open to anyone. On their website you can find an archive of their published content, a philosophy newsletter, and application materials to join the board. Once a quarter, UCPR also hosts a major event on campus, such as a film screening, public talk, roundtable, or debate.