Why Study Philosophy?

Because Philosophy Asks the Ultimate Questions!

Philosophy takes seriously the questions that arise in life by exposing and challenging assumptions; helping you find your own answers and your own standards for answers; and exploring how to live a good life.

Philosophy calls on both your creativity and your rigor. All of your interests from art and literature, history and social science, to mathematics and natural science can be framed and dissected from a philosophical standpoint. Through studying philosophy, you will cultivate the necessary skills for articulate oral and written communication, clear thinking and reasoning, and drawing connections among ideas of all kinds. These skills are important because you have decisions to make, evidence to weigh, opinions to assess, mysteries to contemplate, a world to understand, and a life to live. Philosophy allows you explore these possibilities and more, by broadening your world perspective and developing a critical lens.

The UC Denver Philosophy Department consists of engaged scholars. Each of the full-time faculty possesses a specialist's knowledge of specific fields and figures, but these specializations are complimented by the generalist's perspective. The typical gap between scholar and teacher is crossed constantly by the UC Denver Philosophy Department. For the student this means that the fine points of philosophical ideas are carefully explained, while they are also set into a larger historical and practical context, largely free of jargon. Students benefit because they are dialectically guided away from what they know towards what they do not know; teachers benefit because this kind of contact with students introduces new perspectives and concerns into their explanations. The overall result is an exciting transaction of arguments and ideas.

The department is pluralistic in orientation, with faculty strengths that include ancient, continental, analytic, feminist, and American approaches. All department faculty agree that a proper understanding of historical context is basic to more specialized work in philosophy, and that a diversity of approaches to philosophical subjects is the beginning of wisdom.

The department features a Philosophical Track for the Master's of Humanities 4+1 program, a major and two minors (Philosophy and Ethics). All faculty teach regularly at the introductory level and take special care to make each student's experience a fulfilling one. The department holds a speaker series each semester, featuring invited philosophers, which is open to all. Philosophy students also have access to the Honi F. Haber Memorial Library, an extensive philosophy library located in the department, dedicated to our beloved former faculty member, Honi Haber, Ph.D..

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