Department of Philosophy

Aaron James, Department Chair
85 Humanities Instructional Building
949-824-6525
www.humanities.uci.edu/philosophy
The Department of Philosophy is world-class and has particular strengths in three main areas: Epistemology, philosophy of mind and metaphysics, pursued with analytic methodologies but open to the influences of the continental tradition; Social philosophy, broadly construed to include value theory (especially moral, political and legal philosophy) and the philosophy of social phenomena; and History of philosophy, including ancient, modern, and contemporary philosophy, both analytic and continental.
UC Irvine’s philosophy graduate program is jointly administered by the Department of Philosophy in the School of Humanities and the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science in the School of Social Sciences. The graduate program is ranked among the top programs in the United States, and among the very best in a number of subfields of philosophy (see the Philosophical Gourmet Report). Graduate applications need to be addressed either to the Department of Philosophy, or to the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, depending on the dominant interests of the student. But graduate students have full access to all the courses and faculty of the two Departments. We have been able to place our Ph.D. students at well-reputed universities and colleges.
The success of our undergraduate program is based on a rigorous education both in historical and in contemporary issues. Because of the collaboration between the two Departments undergraduate and graduate students can take courses ranging from philosophy of quantum mechanics and decision theory to social epistemology and the philosophy of race. The fact that our majors have gone on to study in first-rate graduate programs and to pursue successful careers in law and medicine is a testament to the quality of the program.