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Graduate
Program
Department of Philosophy, Yale
University
I. GENERAL PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:
Student Body, Facilities, Advising, Admissions, Financial Aid
II. DEGREE
REQUIREMENTS
A. Course Work
B. Teaching
C. Logic Requirement
D. Language Requirement
E. Qualifying Papers
F. Prospectus
G. Admission to Candidacy
H. Dissertation
I. M.A., M.Phil.
Degrees
I. GENERAL PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
The department
aims, first, at developing the philosophical capacities and interests of
each student, and, second, at offering a diverse program of instruction dealing
with philosophers and philosophical issues both historically and in terms
of the logic of arguments. Attention is also given to the bearing of
philosophical ideas on other disciplines.
Student Body
During 2007-2008, 28 students were in residence; there were 2 students in absentia. 15 of these had not yet been admitted to
candidacy, and 15 were writing dissertations.
Facilities
In addition to the strong holdings of Sterling Memorial Library, there is
one room devoted solely to philosophy books and journals. A departmental
lounge for faculty and graduate students is located in Connecticut Hall.
Advising and Mentoring
The Director of Graduate Studies serves as official advisor to all
graduate students. During the
registration period of each semester, students should consult with the
Director of Graduate Studies to plan their courses and/or discuss their
programs. All schedules must be signed by the DGS.
Toward the end
of their second year (i.e. when the coursework is almost over), a faculty
member will be assigned for each student as a mentor. The mentor does not have to be in the
same area that the student is interested in as a thesis topic, and does
not have to have had the student in his/her class, either. The mentor is responsible for checking
on his/her student’s progress, especially, writing qualifying papers, and
for keeping the DGS informed about any problem, until the student has
chosen a dissertation advisor.
Meetings
Once a
semester there is a general meeting with students, the chair, and the
DGS. Before the meeting, we make
up a list of agenda so that the meeting will be more focused and
efficient. Input from students for agenda is crucial.
Admissions
The department considers applications by all qualified applicants who
have completed undergraduate training before matriculation. Admission is
not restricted to students who have concentrated on philosophy. No
particular language background is required. All evidence of analytical
and conceptual skill is relevant and weighed. The Graduate Record
Examination Aptitude Test and a writing sample are required. (Prospective
applicants should see the Letter to Prospective
Applicants.)
Financial Aid
Students are normally given at least five years of full support --
tuition, plus stipend, plus health care -- in the form of non-teaching
fellowships for the first two years and the fifth (or sixth) year, and
teaching fellowships for the third and fourth year. In the past five
years, the stipends have increased every year for both incoming and
current students. This great mix of teaching and non-teaching fellowships
allows students to get the teaching experience they need to prepare them
for teaching careers, while also providing for much time where the
student is not teaching, and so can devote herself more completely to her
own research. All students are also guaranteed funding at a minimum of
$3,700 in each of three out of five summers for summer study.
II. DEGREE
REQUIREMENTS
Sections A-H specify requirements for the PhD degree. Section I
contains requirements for the M.A. and M.Phil. degrees.
A. Course Work
A total of 12
term courses, including a course in logic, must be completed in two
years. Graduate courses are grouped (1) metaphysics, theory of knowledge,
philosophy of science; (2) ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of religion,
political philosophy, and theory of value; (3) history of philosophy. No
more than six and no fewer than two courses may be taken in each group.
From time to
time a graduate student may want to take an intermediate undergraduate
course when there is no available graduate-level alternative. Approval by
the instructor of the course is required. Normally this will involve
additional work.
Every graduate
student in residence in the philosophy Ph.D. program who has not been
advanced to candidacy must be enrolled in at least one course in each
semester of residence. When the 12-course requirement has been met, the
student must be enrolled in a reading course with a faculty member
holding primary or secondary appointment in philosophy; the requirement
in such a course is to make progress in satisfying degree requirements.
We have a
work-in-progress seminar once or twice a year where students present their
work-in-progress (for qualifying papers, chapters of the thesis, or other
publications) and discuss other students’ work. We strongly encourage those who are
advanced to candidacy to take the seminar.
If a student wants to take a course outside the department for credit towards the degree, he/she will need the permission of the DGS.
Grades
The Graduate School requires that a student have at least two
"Honors" grades in the total record. The department requires
that these two grades be in courses given by two different instructors
and not in tutorials.
Due Dates for Course Work
Course work should be completed by the end of the semester. The
department and the graduate school due date for fall-term grades is
January 7, and for spring-term grades, June 1.
Instructors have
the responsibility for assigning dates for submission of course work to
meet these grade deadlines. If a student and instructor have agreed that
an extension is appropriate, the student must submit a request for the
Temporary Incomplete (TI) with the intended completion date, signed by
the instructor and the director of graduate studies. The instructor will
indicate the mark of TI on the grade sheet, which is to be submitted to
the Office of the Registrar by the appropriate grade submission deadline.
Only one TI for courses taken in a
single term is permitted. If papers are not submitted by September 1
of the following academic year, a TI will be converted to a permanent
Incomplete (I) on the student’s record.
Credit For Course Work Done
Elsewhere
In recognition of previous graduate-level work done at Yale or elsewhere,
the department may waive a portion of the course requirement. To petition
for course credit, a student must have completed the first year of
courses. It is customary that we do not give more than a semester of
course credit for work done elsewhere.
Credit for course work done elsewhere does not reduce the tuition
or residence requirement of the Graduate School.
B. Teaching
Every student is
required to have teaching experience in at least two different areas. The
areas are to be understood as noted above under "Course Work,"
except that logic is considered a fourth area. Teaching assistantships
will be determined by the Teaching Fellow Committee consisting of the Chair,
the Director of Graduate Studies, the Director of Undergraduate Studies
and a graduate student member of the Committee, in consultation with the
instructor, whose preferences are given great weight in the deliberation.
Students are not eligible for assistantships unless they are in good
standing and are proceeding satisfactorily towards the degree. Most
students have assistantships in their third and fourth years. Teaching
assistantships are part of the fellowship package, thus fellowship holders
will have first claim to TA openings. TA appointments must be approved by
the Graduate
School
and by Yale
College.
C. Logic
Requirement
The logic
requirement is to be fulfilled by suitable course work. In content, the
work must minimally include propositional and predicate logic and
discussions of some standard metalogical
notions, e.g. consistency, completeness, as well as topics in philosophy
of logic. When there is evidence that comparable work has been done
elsewhere, a student may petition for a waiver. Philosophy 567 and 568
meet the requirement.
D. Language
Requirement
Each student
must satisfy a language requirement in either French,
German, Greek, or Latin, or in some other foreign language, if it can be
shown that this other language will be important to the student’s
philosophical work. This requirement can be met by passing French 115a/b,
German 115a/b, Greek 110/111, or Latin 110/111, or an authorized
equivalent course with a grade of at least B. (The courses listed are
two-semester beginning courses. Yale
College
frequently offers intensive summer beginning classes that can serve as
equivalent courses.) A student may petition for a waiver of the
requirement when there is evidence that comparable work has been done
elsewhere.
Students must read
the original language of any literature that constitutes a large part of
the subject of their dissertation. Thus, in many areas of philosophy,
satisfactory scholarship requires a good reading knowledge of certain
foreign languages. This is true of almost every topic in the history of
philosophy, and also of many areas of current philosophical debate. While
the requirement spelled out in the above paragraph applies to all
students, those wishing to specialize in some areas of philosophy will
therefore need to develop a deeper mastery of a foreign language than is
needed to satisfy that general requirement and may need a reading
knowledge of more than one foreign language. Early in their graduate
careers, students who will or might specialize in such an area of
philosophy should consult with the faculty members in the department who
work in the area the student is contemplating, or with the Director of
Graduate Studies, about what knowledge of foreign languages will be
required to do research in that area.
Classics and
Philosophy
Superior
students, preferably with a background in Classical languages and
literature, may be admitted to a joint Ph.D. program in Philosophy and
Classics. Interested students who have been admitted to either
department should apply to the interdepartmental committee in charge of
the program. Philosophy students enrolled in the program are expected to
meet the qualifying paper requirement in Philosophy. Students will be
expected to take at least seven term courses in the Department of
Philosophy. Two of these must be in the history of post-classical
philosophy. Students will also have to satisfy the requirements of the
Department of Classics as stated under Classics.
E. Qualifying
Papers
Qualifying
Papers are expected to demonstrate the writer's capacity for
intellectually responsible work in philosophy. A Qualifying Paper should
make plain the philosophical motivation for its choice of topic; it
should discuss the topic more fully then is expected in a piece of
course-work; it should be addressed to an "ideal reader" rather
than any particular professor. The ideal reader is not someone with
preconceptions about your chosen subject, but is someone who cannot be
relied on to know, through personal acquaintance with you, that you
"really know" or "really understand" moves, concepts,
assumptions etc. which you use but don't make clear in your paper. In
this sense, a Qualifying Paper should be "self-sufficient".
Ideal readers (unlike actual readers of Qualifying Paper's) are not a
captive audience. They go on reading a paper if and only if it commands
their attention as a convincing philosophical performance in its own
right. ('Convincing' implies that the writer is in control, consequently
that the paper is organized; it doesn't imply that the reader will end up
agreeing. 'In its own right' does not imply that the ideas are original
in the sense of never having appeared before; it does imply that the
paper visibly expresses the author's own working through of the thoughts
put forward, whatever their ultimate source.)
Two qualifying papers
written in English must be submitted, one in history, the other in
another distribution area. The
first should be submitted by the second Monday of the Fall semester of a
student’s third year; the second by the first Monday in December, the
same year. These papers, which
should be no longer than 30 pages or 9000 words long, usually originate
in course work done during the first two years; but the reworked papers
should be more substantial and professional than an ordinary term
paper. At the end of the term, the
instructor will give a written indication whether the paper is suitable
as a qualifying paper. Students
should consult with the original instructor about how to improve their
papers.
Each paper must
be graded either as Pass or Fail by two faculty members other than the
person for whom the paper was originally written. If one of the readers finds a paper
unsatisfactory, it is assigned to a third reader. If warranted, failed papers may be
returned for possible revision, in light of the readers’ comments.
F. Prospectus
When the other
pre-dissertation requirements have been satisfied, a student must submit
to the DGS a dissertation prospectus, written in consultation with
his/her advisor. An oral examination of the prospectus will be arranged
by the DGS. The examining committee consists of the advisor and two
examiners selected by the DGS. If the prospectus needs to be revised, the
revised version, approved by the examining committee, is submitted to the
DGS.
The prospectus
should take the form of a clear statement concerning the basic subject of
the dissertation, the specific problems or issues to be addressed, the
literature or other materials to be used, and the general direction the
discussion is intended to take. The function of the prospectus, not being
the outline or the summary of the thesis, is to focus as clearly as
possible, for both student and examining committee, on the content and
scope of the research he or she plans to carry out. In preparing a
prospectus, students are encouraged to keep in mind that it will serve as
a guide to the committee in deciding (1) whether the topic is manageable
within the prescribed limits; (2) whether the necessary materials are
available; and (3) whether any specific background, such as some
knowledge of another field, foreign language, etc., is required for the
successful completion of the project.
Prospectuses
will obviously vary, depending on the topic, but the final version should
be between 15 and 20 pages (i.e. 4,500 – 6,000 words), without the
bibliography. In addition to this,
an advisor may require the following:
an essay that should demonstrate the ability to put forth his/her
own arguments on the issue. Even
though it does not have to be conclusive, the student should show some of
the main arguments of the thesis.
In this case, it can be more or less a chapter of the thesis.
Final approval
of the prospectus by the committee may be understood as a kind of
contract committing the student to the pursuit of the specified topic and
the department to the acceptance of that topic (not the dissertation!) as
a legitimate area of inquiry. Since all research is an open-ended affair,
it is understood that should a dissertation develop along lines that
differ significantly from the original prospectus, a revised prospectus
will be filed.
It is expected
that the prospectus will be approved by the end of the student's third
year. Students must seek an advisor ahead of time and to prepare at least
a preliminary draft for the advisor's consideration.
G. Admission To
Candidacy
A student is
admitted to candidacy after successful completion of all pre-dissertation
requirements including approval of the prospectus. In order to register
for a seventh term, a student must have been admitted to candidacy. Beginning the semester after the
prospectus exam, the prospectus committee checks in on
the candidate and the advisor sends a dissertation progress report
to the DGS every semester.
H. Dissertation
Timing
Candidates should expect to complete their dissertations within 6
years of entering the program. In order to facilitate work on the
dissertation, Yale has instituted dissertation fellowships. A
dissertation fellowship is available to every graduate student in good standing;
it may be taken in either the 5th or the 6th year.
Advisor
A student must have an official advisor to be chosen from the
department's faculty. Any exception will have to be approved by the
Director of Graduate Studies.
Length
The 75,000 word maximum length of the dissertation, including
bibliographical footnotes, will be strictly observed. Appendices,
discussion notes, etc., are not limited, but it is expected that the
dissertation would be judged on the basis of the primary text.
No dissertation
should be bound or submitted to the Graduate
School
until a completely assembled unbound copy has been seen by the
dissertation advisor. The dissertation will be made available to the
committee of readers after it has been submitted to the Graduate
School.
(See Submission Procedures for Dissertation available from the Graduate
School Registrar's Office. This document also includes format
instructions for dissertations). In addition, one softbound copy should
be submitted to the Department. An oral defense of the thesis is
required.
I. M.A., M. Phil.
Degrees
The M.A. is
awarded to students in the Ph.D. program after completion of six one-term
courses with an average grade of High
Pass.
An M. Phil. is awarded after completion of all requirements for the Ph.D.
except the prospectus and the dissertation. To receive these degrees a
student must petition the Graduate
School
by the deadline stipulated on their calendar.
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