Department of Philosophy - University of Missouri-Columbia

Undergraduate Degree Programs

"Philosophy majors performed substantially better than the average (5% better or more) on each of the tests (LSAT, GMAT, GRE) surveyed. Not one other group of majors shows this consistent pattern—not even economics or the physical sciences, whose majors did exceptionally well in three of the four areas but only marginally better than the average on the verbal portion of the GRE."

Phi Kappa Phi Journal
2/20/90

To find out more about the benefits of an undergraduate major in philosophy, check out the American Philosophical Association's Philosophy: A Brief Guide for Undergraduates and this information from the University of Connecticut's website.

As a philosophy major, you'll be

  • Studying in a department whose faculty have won no fewer than 18 awards for excellence in teaching; two have won the prestigious Kemper Fellowships for Teaching Excellence.
  • Studying in a department whose faculty are active researchers in philosophy with national, and even international, reputations in their specialties.
  • Exposing yourself to a fascinating world of ideas which will enrich the rest of your life.
  • Developing intellectual skills—such as critical thinking, careful reading, persuasive writing, and handling complex argumentation—that are vital for a wide range of challenging careers, especially in law, but also in business and medicine.
  • Joining a select group of like-minded students who welcome intellectual challenges, who care about the life of the mind, and who share your love of ideas.

To major in philosophy, you need to

  • Take a total of 30 hours in Philosophy, plus complete a minor or second major in another discipline.
  • Take, in particular:
    • PHIL 2700 (153), Mathematical Logic [logic requirement]
    • At least one of PHIL 1100 (51), Intro to Ethics, PHIL 4600 (213), Political and Social Philosophy, and PHIL 4500 (366), Theories of Ethics [ethics requirement]
    • PHIL 3000 (204), Ancient Western Philosophy, and PHIL 3200 (205), Modern Philosophy [history requirement]
    • At least two 4000-level courses [upper-class requirement]
    • PHIL 4950 (390), Senior Seminar [capstone experience requirement]
    • At least one writing intensive course in Philosophy [writing-intensive requirement]
    • Nine Hours of electives.
  • Observe the following restrictions:
    • No course may be used to fulfil more than one of these requirements (i.e., no double-dipping).
    • No more than two courses below the 2000-level count toward the major.
    • No course counts toward the philosophy major unless the grade is C- or higher.
  • If you would like to major or double-major in Philosophy, download the Graduation Plan (Word) with Instructions and follow the instructions.
  • If you have any questions about majoring in philosophy, you should contact the Undergraduate Advisor.

To double-major in philosophy and something else, you need to

  • Meet the major requirements of both the philosophy department and the other department.
  • Use courses from each department to meet the minor requirement of the other department.
  • Have the program for each department approved by the advisor for each department.

To major in philosophy with Honors, you need to

  • To earn a BA with honors in philosophy, a student must earn a 3.3 GPA in all courses, and a 3.7 GPA in all philosophy courses; meet all the standard requirements for the regular philosophy major; in addition take Phil 4998, Honors I, and Phil 4999, Honors II, writing a satisfactory senior thesis normally of 25-40 pages under the guidance of a faculty member who has consented to work with the student; and pass an oral examination on the thesis before a committee of three members of the philosophy faculty.Meet all the requirements of a regular major.
  • If you have any questions about majoring with Honors in philosophy, you should contact the Undergraduate Advisor.

If you are interested in going to graduate school in philosophy, you should

  • See the Director of Undergraduate Studies as early as possible in your studies. Successful applications to graduate school in philosophy require early planning, including the selection of the right courses to take.

To minor in philosophy, you need to

  • Complete any 15 hours of philosophy, including at least 6 hours of courses numbered 2000 or higher, as approved by both the philosophy advisor and the advisor in the major department. Phil 4998 and Phil 4999 are not open to minors.
  • If you have any questions about minoring in philosophy, you should contact the Undergraduate Advisor.

Please note also that

  • According to current university regulations, all seniors, in order to graduate, must participate in an assessment of their mastery of course work in their major field. The purpose of this assessment is to monitor the performance of the department in training undergraduates. Although it is obligatory for seniors in all departments to undergo an assessment procedure of some kind, the exact form of the procedure is left to be determined by individual departments.
  • The Philosophy Department's current policy is as follow: Before the end of winter semester's classes, turn in to the Undergraduate Advisor CLEAN copies of THREE of the philosophy term papers you have written over the course of your career at MU. One of these papers should be the term paper you submit for the Senior Seminar; ideally, the other two papers should represent work done at the beginning and in the middle of your career as a philosophy major. Also ideally, the papers should represent work done in each of the three central areas of ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology--though such work needn't have been done in classes with those names (e.g., a metaphysics paper could have been written for Modern Philosophy). These papers will be evaluated by an external evaluator--a philosophy professor at another university--whose final task is to evaluate the quality of the philosophy major program. The evaluation of your papers is only a means to this end, and no trace of the evaluation will appear on your transcript.

If you have any questions,

Course Directors for TA-taught courses:

Course Director for Phil 1000:
      Peter Markie (F08); Don Sievert (W09)
Course Director for Phil 1100:
      Sara Chant (F08); Matt McGrath (W09)
Course Director for Phil 1150, 2420, and 2430:
      Peter Vallentyne (F08); Peter Vallentyne (W09)