Department of Philosophy

An M.A. Program in Philosophy at Brandeis has several immediate and obvious advantages over similar programs elsewhere in the country as well as here in the Boston area.

The Boston Community

First, there is the Boston area itself. This alone gives Brandeis an advantage over many other MA programs merely by virtue of its geography. Not only is the Boston area a lively academic community of colleges and universities, it has a large and exhilarating network of philosophy students and scholars. Announcements of colloquia, public lectures, conferences, and other events and activities in philosophy throughout the Boston area are regularly exchanged among departments, conference and speaker series planners and organizers via an email subscription list created, maintained and run by the Brandeis Philosophy Department, connecting other departments in the area, among them, Harvard, M.I.T, BU, BC, Tufts, Wellesley, and UMass.

High-quality Training

The reputation of Brandeis University as a major research institute places the M.A. Program in Philosophy among the top-ranked programs in the country. The Brandeis Department is recognized by the Leiter Report as among the top ranked undergraduate programs for students to consider who wish to go on to study philosophy at the graduate level and the addition of an M.A. program only enhances that reputation.

Placement

The high quality of the Brandeis Philosophy Faculty, holding Ph.D.’s from the top graduate programs in the country (from such institutions as Berkeley, Chicago, Cornell, Harvard, NYU, Princeton, Rockefeller, Stanford, UCLA, and the University of Pennsylvania is an advantage for students who enter the Brandeis program, giving them the opportunity to work with faculty members, who are highly regarded within the field, thereby enhancing students’ chances of getting into top graduate programs in philosophy.

Close Supervision

Given that Brandeis is a small research university and that seminars and classes are small, especially those an M.A. student is likely to take and given that, currently, Brandeis does not have a competing Ph.D. program in place, M.A. students have the opportunity to work closely with members of the philosophy faculty.

Participation in the Philosophical Life of the Department

The department runs its own colloquium series with speakers from major philosophy departments around the country, providing M.A. students with the opportunity to keep up with the most recent debates within the field as well as participate in conversation with philosophers from other universities. Students also have access to a lively philosophical community in the Boston Area. Library resources, including our own Goldfarb Library in addition to the Boston Library Consortium,  that gives graduate students borrowing privileges at major libraries throughout the area. Graduate students also have full access to many nearby manuscript repositories. Brandeis is within easy commuting distance of some of the very best public and private libraries in the United States, including the Boston Athenaeum, the Boston Public Library and Widener Library at Harvard.

Tuition Remission and Scholarships

The Philosophy M.A. program is able offer incoming students, off the bat, a 25 percent scholarship on need (based on a FAFSA application) and an additional 25 percent based on academic merit (with the approval of the Dean of GSAS). In addition, the Department offers several course assistantships (assigned on merit basis) to incoming candidates, thus helping students defray the cost of graduate study in philosophy.

Mentoring and Career Counseling

Each incoming M.A. student is assigned a mentor drawn from the philosophy faculty, who not only supervises their work but can help them plan their own best route through the program as well as give career advice.