Requirements for the Major

Students with questions about the three tracks (detailed below) for majoring in Philosophy should email the Assistant to the Director of Undergraduate Studies Tyler Zimmer.

The Standard Major allows for a great deal of flexibility in the devising of a program of study.  In this program, students take a minimum of 10 courses offered by the Department of Philosophy (i.e., 10 courses with a PHIL course number*) for quality grades. The courses must meet the following distribution requirements:

1. Two courses from the History of Philosophy sequence (25000, 26000, 27000).
2. Elementary Logic (20100)—note: students are strongly encouraged to take this course before autumn quarter of their senior year.
3. Three courses from the two A/B fields of philosophy: either two courses in Practical Philosophy (field A) and one in Theoretical Philosophy (field B), or two courses in Theoretical Philosophy (B) and one in Practical Philosophy (A).
4. Four additional courses.

Standard majors writing senior essays (the senior essay is also called the BA essay) take the BA workshop (Senior Seminar I and II) for two College credits, but only one of these two credits will count toward the 10 required to complete the major.

All majors will be required to meet with the ADUS at the end of their 3rd year to review their program of study and discuss the possibility of writing the senior essay.

*Courses lacking a PHIL designation will not be counted toward the major. 

Students do not need to submit an application or complete a departmental form in order to officially become a standard track major—they need only declare the major electronically in the typical way. More information about the standard major in philosophy is available in the College Catalog.

This option is designed to acquaint students with the problems and methods of philosophy in more depth than is generally possible in the standard major. It has two distinctive features. First, students will do some of their course work in very small discussion groups, which are open only to them. These discussion groups are the Intensive Track Seminar (29600), the Junior Tutorial (29200), and the Senior Tutorial (29300). Second, intensive majors are required to write a Senior Essay, working under the close supervision of a member of the Department's faculty. As they write this essay in their fourth year, majors on the intensive track take two courses especially designed to help with this task, 29901 (Senior Seminar I) and 29902 (Senior Seminar II).

Click here to view the application form for the intensive major. It must be completed no later than week 6 of the spring quarter of the second year. 

In total, intensive majors take 13 courses within the Department. The courses must be taken for quality grades and must meet the following requirements: 

1. Two courses from the History of Philosophy sequence (25000, 26000, 27000).
2. Elementary Logic (20100)—note: students are strongly encouraged to take this course before autumn quarter of their senior year.
3. Three courses from the two A/B fields of philosophy: either two courses in Practical Philosophy (field A) and one in Theoretical Philosophy (field B), or two courses in Theoretical Philosophy (B) and one in Practical Philosophy (A).
4. Five specialized courses: Intensive Track Seminar (29600), Junior Tutorial (29200), Senior Tutorial (29300), Senior Seminar I (29901), and Senior Seminar II (29902).
5. Two additional courses.

Students interested in the Intensive Major must apply in the middle of the spring quarter of their sophomore year. Students with questions about the intensive track should contact the Assistant to the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Tyler Zimmer. 

More information about the intensive major in philosophy is available in the College Catalog. 

This variant of the major is an excellent option for students with a clear and detailed picture of a coherent interdisciplinary course of study, not available under the standard forms of major and minor. In recent years, students electing this track have devised programs for example in Philosophy and Political Science, Philosophy and Biology, and Philosophy and Economics. The Philosophy and Allied Fields major permits one to combine philosophy with any discipline—or, indeed, any set of disciplines—provided there is an underlying theme, problem or line of inquiry uniting the field of study. 

Detailed information about the requirements for this form of major can be found in the course catalog.

Students interested in learning more about the allied fields major should contact Tyler Zimmer and set up a meeting. The application form for Philosophy and Allied Fields is available for download here.