Welcome
Welcome to the Philosophy Department at UTSC. We are a small inclusive department where faculty and students get to know each other. Our faculty are passionate teachers who bring their cutting-edge, internationally known research to their courses.
Studying philosophy is important because philosophical issues are at the heart of the problems we all confront – about freedom, value, the nature of knowledge or the relationship between what we experience and scientific explanations of reality. Philosophy teaches us how to analyze, reason and provide clear arguments about these hard questions and myriad others. That is why a major or specialist degree in philosophy provides outstanding preparation for any post-graduate direction that a student might take – from business to work in health or media or education or government. The foundational nature of philosophy courses – in Ethics, Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Science, Logic and Metaphysics – makes philosophy a terrific double major with any other discipline, for example Political Science, Management, Psychology, Health Studies and Biology to name only a few. All of our courses teach students how to write clear essays and to discuss or argue orally.
At a time when some say we are “post-truth,” the philosophy department focuses firmly on developing skills for evidence-based and reasoned argumentation and debate.
Please browse through the courses we offer – from Philosophy of Art and Environmental Ethics, to Ancient Philosophy and Existentialism – to get a sense of what you might study. In addition to the Specialist, Major and Minor programs in philosophy we offer a Biomedical Ethics Minor. We offer a fourth year Experiential Learning Socrates Project in which students undertake a research project and teach in our Introductory Philosophy and Biomedical Ethics courses. Last but not least, our award-winning Association of Philosophy Students provides a fun community that hosts events throughout the year with an undergraduate conference in the spring. Please come out and become involved!