Graduate Placement
Graduate Placement
The table below provides a record of placement outcomes for graduate students (only) in the MA program. Data are for any/all students who have applied—whether successful or not—for further academic study based on their MA degree. Students that opted not to pursue further academic study are not listed. Data are complete from the present back to 2008. Each placement prior to 2008 is verified; however, unsuccessful applicants are unknown. A note about placement from 1988–2008 follows. For additional information, see our Alumni page.
| MA Graduation Year | Thesis Title or Writing Sample | Placement | 2022–2023 | Comprehensive Exams | tbd [Philosophy] |
|---|---|---|
| 2021–2022 | Defining and Refining Naturalist Realism | PhD, University of Pennsylvania [Philosophy] |
| 2021–2022 | Moral Objections to Moral Realism | PhD, University of Texas Austin [Philosophy] |
| 2021–2022 | Berkeley on God’s Knowledge of Sensible Objects | PhD, University of California Riverside [Philosophy] |
| 2021–2022 | Mind, Perception, Phenomenology | |
| 2020–2021 | Casting Light on the Search for Engrams: The Reductionism-Mechanism Debate | PhD, University of Pittsburgh [History & Philosophy of Science] |
| 2020–2021 | On Multi-Dimensional Gradability: A Refutation of the False Dichotomy in Knowing How | PhD, University of California Irvine [Philosophy] | 2020–2021 | Exploring the Differences between Moral and Nonmoral Testimony | PhD, University of Memphis [Philosophy]; transferred to PhD Purdue University [Literature & Philosophy] | 2020–2021 | al-Ghazali on Occasionalism, Natural Science, and Miracles | PhD, admitted but declined offer [Religion/Interdisciplinary] |
| 2019–2020 | Relevant Features that Could Qualify Artificial Intelligence Systems as Persons with Moral Standing | PhD, University of Wisconsin [Philosophy] | 2018–2019 | Language, Nature, and Meaning in Life | PhD, University of Cincinnati [Philosophy] | 2017–2018 | The Basis of Moral Values | PhD, University of Connecticut [Philosophy] |
| 2016–2017 | An Empirical Look at the Transparency of Perceptual Experience | PhD, University of California San Diego [Philosophy] | 2016–2017 | Absence Causation in Mechanistic Explanation | PhD, University of Colorado [Philosophy] | 2016–2017 | Scientific Realism and the Geometric Structure of Physical Theories | PhD, University of Minnesota [Philosophy] |
| 2014–2015 | Overcoming the Present | PT Lecturer, Cal State San Bernardino [Philosophy] | 2014–2015 | Tracing and Offloading: A Neo-Lockean Reply to Johnston | PhD, University of Kansas [Philosophy] | 2013–2014 | The Doxastic Conception of Delusion | PhD, University of Wisconsin [Philosophy] |
| 2013–2014 | Comprehensive Exams | PT Lecturer, Long Beach City College [Social Sciences] | 2012–2013 | Comprehensive Exams | JD, Loyola Marymount [Law] |
| 2012–2013 | O’Connor’s Agent-Causation Theory of Free Will | PhD, University of California Davis [Philosophy] | 2011–2012 | Dirty Hands, Virtue Ethics, and Consequentialism | PhD, Syracuse University [Philosophy] | 2011–2012 | Manipulation and Moral Responsibility | PhD, Purdue University [Philosophy] |
| 2010–2011 | The Role of Intuition in Philosophical Theory Construction | PhD, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [Psychology] |
| 2010–2011 | Nietzsche as Cultural Physician | JD, University of Southern California [Law] |
| 2009–2010 | A Defense of Mackie’s Error Theory | PhD, University of Western Ontario [Philosophy] |
| 2008–2009 | A Defense of Davidson’s Dissolution to the Problem of Global Skepticism | PhD, University of Utah [Philosophy] |
| 2007–2008 | Worldmaking and Exemplification in Theater-to-Film Adaptations | PhD, University of California Los Angeles [Cinema Studies] |
| 2007–2008 | Back to the Future: A Modern Natural Law Understanding of the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789 | PhD, University of California Irvine [Philosophy] |
| 2006–2007 | Pyrrhonian Skepticism and the Problem of the Criterion | PhD, University of California Irvine [Philosophy] |
| 2005–2006 | Comprehensive Exams | PhD, Cal State Long Beach [Education] |
| 2005–2006 | The Supervenience Interpretation of Biological Fitness and Scientific Understanding | PhD, York University [Philosophy] | 2005–2006 | New Foundations for Philosophy of Mind | PhD, Florida State University [Philosophy] |
| 2005–2006 | Explanation in Biology | PhD, University of Minnesota [Philosophy] |
| 2004–2005 | Musical Ontology and the Epistemological Turn | PhD, Indiana University Bloomington [Philosophy] |
| 2004–2005 | Comprehensive Exams | PhD, University of Southampton |
| 2002–2003 | A Philosophical Defense of Bilingual Education | PhD, University of California Irvine | 2002–2003 | Two Studies of Paul Churchland’s Eliminative Materialism | PhD, Florida State University |
| 2002–2003 | Trouble in Paradise: The Factual Problem of Minority Rights Justification in Normative Political Theory | PhD, University of California Irvine |
| 2002–2003 | On Plantinga’s Case Against Naturalism | PhD, Purdue University |
| 2001–2002 | The Fool in Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan | PhD, University of Southern California |
| 2001–2002 | Knowledge of the Mind: A Defense of Descartes against Malebranche | PhD, University of California Irvine |
| 2001–2002 | Martin Heidegger: Dwelling and its Ethical Import | PhD, University of Texas Austin [Architecture] |
| 2001–2002 | Critical Social Theory: Essays on Power, Knowledge, and Consciousness | PhD, University of California Irvine [History] | 2000–2001 | Becoming Responsible for Emotion-Motivated Action | PhD, State University of New York Albany |
| 2000–2001 | Locke, Nozick, the Descriptive Model of Rights, and the Limits of Private Property | MA, University of California Davis [Political Science] |
| 1999–2000 | The Logic and Rationality of Paraconsistency | PhD, University of South Africa Pretoria |
| 1999–2000 | Plantinga and Warranted Belief | PhD, Purdue University |
| 1999–2000 | Using the Will to Power to Shape Authentic Selves | PhD, University of California Riverside |
| 1999–2000 | Vagueness in Language and Law: Blurring the Semantics-Pragmatics Distinction | PhD, University of Ottawa |
| 1999–2000 | The Realism-Antirealism Debate and the Big Bang Model in Cosmology | PhD, University of California San Diego |
| 1999–2000 | Three Treatments of Scientific Explanation | PhD, University of Southern California |
| 1998–1999 | Putnam’s Puzzle: An Attempted Exorcism in the Philosophy of Language | PhD, University of California Santa Barbara |
| 1998–1999 | The Realism Debate: Two Interpretations of Quantum Theory | PhD, University of Southern California |
| 1997–1998 | Seeing Our Way through Relativism | PhD, Washington University St. Louis |
| 1996–1997 | Toward a Phenomenology of Obligation | PhD, Boston College [Philosophy] |
| 1996–1997 | When Seeing is Believing: Bas van Fraassen and the Observable/Unobservable Distinction | PhD, University of Toronto |
| 1996–1997 | Distanciation and Appropriation: Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutic Phenomenology and the Challenge of Evil | PhD, Fordham University [Philosophy] |
| 1995–1996 | The Role of Cumulative Case Arguments in Theistic and Naturalistic Explanations | PhD, University of California Irvine |
| 1994–1995 | Chaos, Complexity Theory, and the Free Will/Determinism Debate | PhD, University of Maryland |
A review showed that 127 MA degrees were awarded during the period 1988–2008. Although data are incomplete, a (conservative) review revealed the following results:
- 58 of the 127 graduates chose to apply to doctoral programs.
- 53 (or 91%) of these 58 were admitted to a doctoral program.
- 45 of these 53 were admitted to a PhD program in Philosophy, and 7 were admitted to doctoral programs in other disciplines (e.g., Law, Education, Film Studies).
- 30 of the 45 admitted to a PhD program in Philosophy (67%) were admitted to one (or more) of the top-fifty PhD programs in the United States (as ranked by The Philosophical Gourmet Report).
- Of the 69 graduates that chose not to apply to PhD programs, at least 21 (or more than 30%) went on to teach Philosophy as Full- or Part-time Adjunct Professors or Lecturers at various universities and community colleges around the United States and Canada.