{"id":79,"date":"2024-03-06T16:20:20","date_gmt":"2024-03-06T16:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/?page_id=79"},"modified":"2026-01-06T18:23:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T18:23:52","slug":"chairs-welcome","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/chairs-welcome\/","title":{"rendered":"Chair&#8217;s Welcome"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-172\" src=\"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2024\/03\/wuerth.jpg\" alt=\"smiling man\" width=\"186\" height=\"213\" \/>Welcome to the flourishing community of the Vanderbilt Department of Philosophy! Our award-winning, internationally-leading faculty confront both timeless and timely questions during an age of historic technological growth and societal challenges. Where philosophy graduate programs have trended toward hyper-specialization in recent decades, the Vanderbilt Department of Philosophy is committed to the view that the best education in philosophy must be grounded in a world-class education in the history of philosophy, epistemology, and metaphysics.<\/p>\n<p>Work for the <a href=\"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/graduate-admissions\/\">Ph.D. degree<\/a> is offered in all major fields of philosophical inquiry and historical periods of philosophy. The department has strengths in ethics, social and political philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of religion, and the history of philosophy, especially Kant and post-Kantian philosophy, early modern, and ancient. Our <a href=\"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/faculty\/\">faculty<\/a> reflects a variety of approaches and methodologies, including analytic, continental, historical, and pragmatic. While our faculty\u2019s leading publications span broad areas of philosophy, a quick look reveals a powerful confluence in the area of value theory:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Robert Talisse\u2019s forthcoming third volume in his trilogy of books in political philosophy, <em>Civic Solitude: Why Democracy Needs Distance<\/em> (Oxford University Press)<\/li>\n<li>Matt Congdon\u2019s <em>Moral Articulation: On the Development of New Moral Concepts<\/em> (Oxford University Press, 2023)<\/li>\n<li>David Thorstad and Jacob Barrett\u2019s forthcoming co-edited (with Hilary Greaves) volume addressing the threat of AI, <em>Essays on Longtermism<\/em> (Oxford University Press)<\/li>\n<li>David Thorstad\u2019s new book on epistemology under nonideal conditions, <em>Inquiry Under Bounds<\/em> (Oxford University Press, 2024)<\/li>\n<li>Jacob Barrett\u2019s <em>Ideal and Non-Ideal Theory<\/em>, under contract with Cambridge University Press, in their Cambridge Elements in Political Philosophy series<\/li>\n<li>Sarah Raskoff\u2019s <i style=\"font-size: 1.2rem\">Veganism, More or Less: A Philosophical Guide<\/i>, under contract with Princeton University Press<\/li>\n<li>Diana Heney\u2019s forthcoming <em>American Ethics: An Introduction to Pragmatist Moral Philosophy<\/em> (Oxford University Press)<\/li>\n<li>Lenn Goodman\u2019s (with Philip Lieberman) just-released translation and commentary on the ethics of Maimonides, <em>Maimonides\u2019s<\/em> <em>Guide to the Perplexed<\/em> (Stanford University Press, 2024), which Goodman has paired with his accompanying <em>A Guide to the <\/em>Guide to the Perplexed: <em>A Reader\u2019s Companion to Maimonides\u2019 Masterwork<\/em> (Stanford University Press, 2024)<\/li>\n<li>Scott Aikin\u2019s (with William Stephens) translation and commentary on the Stoic ethics of Epictetus, <em>Epictetus\u2019s \u2018Encheiridion\u2019: A New Translation and Guide to Stoic Ethics<\/em> (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023)<\/li>\n<li>Emanuele Costa\u2019s forthcoming book on the <em>Ethics<\/em> of Spinoza, <em>The Structure of Spinoza\u2019s World<\/em> (Oxford University Press)<\/li>\n<li>Julian Wuerth\u2019s <em>Kant on Mind, Action, and Ethics<\/em> (Oxford University Press, 2014), winner of the North American Kant Society Book Prize for Senior Scholars<\/li>\n<li>Karen Ng\u2019s <em>Hegel\u2019s Concept of Life: Self-Consciousness, Freedom, and Logic<\/em> (Oxford University Press, 2021), winner of the Journal of the History of Philosophy Book Prize.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Vanderbilt\u2019s strong placement record for its Ph.D. students reflects this balanced training. Current placement data can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/graduate-placements\/\">here<\/a>. Every Vanderbilt Ph.D. student receives generous financial support: six years of full funding for a Ph.D. program designed to be completed in five to six years.<\/p>\n<p>Our department also regularly places its <a href=\"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/major-minor\/\">undergraduate<\/a> philosophy <a href=\"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/career-outcomes\/\">majors and minors<\/a> into top postgraduate programs, most commonly in law, medicine, business, and philosophy. The reason is simple: our philosophy undergraduates not only engage with life\u2019s big questions but also receive rigorous training in analysis of difficult texts and topics by our department\u2019s many award-winning teachers, honing skills in clear, critical, and independent thinking. Vocations can quickly go out of style in today\u2019s shifting marketplace, but clear thinking and writing don\u2019t. What\u2019s more, training in ethics is prized in medicine, business, and law; and training in political philosophy gives students a leg up for law school.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Philosophy is a bustling hub of trans-institutional, inter-disciplinary activity. We have strong collaborative ties with Vanderbilt\u2019s Artificial Intelligence Institute, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vumc.org\/cbmes\/center-biomedical-ethics-and-society-vanderbilt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society<\/a>, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/political-science\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Department of Political Science<\/a>. We also have a <a href=\"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/events-colloquium\/\">Philosophy Colloquium<\/a>, an annual <a href=\"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/events-berry-lecture\/\">Berry Public Lecture<\/a>, national and international workshops and conferences, and student reading groups such as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/minorities-and-philosophy\/\">Minorities and Philosophy (MAP)<\/a> and Ethcetera. We also have the online lecture series, <a href=\"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/events-modern-philosophy\/\">Vanderbilt Modern Philosophy (VAMP)<\/a>, a regular Social and Political Theory Workshop, and a thriving undergraduate Philosophy Club. These and many other offerings are made possible in part by a long tradition of generous financial support from our alumni, including Greg S. Allen and Elizabeth Sorensen, Alan Berry, Douglas and Ruby MacDonald, and Marianne and Andrew Byrd.<\/p>\n<p>Julian Wuerth<br \/>\nChair, Department of Philosophy<br \/>\nAssociate Professor of Philosophy<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-634 size-full aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2026\/01\/240509nmVUPhilosophy0378-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2026\/01\/240509nmVUPhilosophy0378-2.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2026\/01\/240509nmVUPhilosophy0378-2-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2026\/01\/240509nmVUPhilosophy0378-2-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to the flourishing community of the Vanderbilt Department of Philosophy! Our award-winning, internationally-leading faculty confront both timeless and timely questions during an age of historic technological growth and societal challenges. Where philosophy graduate programs have trended toward hyper-specialization in recent decades, the Vanderbilt Department of Philosophy is committed to the view that the best&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":629,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-headline-img.php","meta":[],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/79"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":581,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/79\/revisions\/581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}