• <a href="/live/image/gid/77/width/650/86492_Philosophy_main_image.jpg" class="lw_preview_image lw_disable_preview" tabindex="-1"><picture class="lw_image lw_image86492"> <source type="image/jpeg" media="(max-width: 500px)" srcset="/live/image/gid/77/width/500/height/479/crop/1/86492_Philosophy_main_image.rev.1607649480.jpg 1x"/> <source type="image/jpeg" media="(min-width: 501px)" srcset="/live/image/gid/77/width/720/height/690/crop/1/86492_Philosophy_main_image.rev.1607649480.jpg 1x"/> <img src="/live/image/gid/77/width/720/height/690/crop/1/86492_Philosophy_main_image.rev.1607649480.jpg" alt="Philosophy provides tools for thinking about the serious challenges facing us in the 21st century." width="720" height="690" data-max-w="696" data-max-h="667" loading="lazy"/> </picture> </a><div class="hero-split_image_caption collapsable-caption"> Philosophy provides tools for thinking about the serious challenges facing us in the 21<sup>st</sup> century.</div>

Why Choose a Degree in Philosophy?

Philosophy has been defined as the love of wisdom, the search for truth through reasoning, and a discipline that comprises aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics. We believe such definitions have their purpose, but the only way to truly understand philosophy is to engage in the study and practice of philosophical inquiry. Through this work, you will build intensive research, informed critical analysis, and careful writing skills as preparation for a wide array of careers and fields, ranging from library science to social work, law to teaching.

What You’ll Study

Our program offers a major and minor. As part of the curriculum, you’ll investigate many of the questions philosophers ask—What can I know? Who am I? What is justice? Does God exist? What is the nature of time?—and several others, as well. Our faculty cover the ideas of ancient philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle; early modern philosophers, like Descartes and Kant; 20th-century thinkers, such as Heidegger and Quine; and recent theorists, like Foucault and Lewis. Topics include ancient Western philosophy, Indian philosophy, 19th-century philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and the philosophies of religion, science, and law. Moreover, our emphasis on research and writing equips our students with skills appropriate to a wide range of pursuits. Many of our students earn course credit while on an overseas program.

Outside the classroom, our department hosts a vibrant philosophy colloquium featuring renowned philosophers from both here in the Northwest and across the country. We also joined with other philosophy departments in the Northwest to apply for and receive a Mellon grant to investigate the ways in which philosophy is integral to work on diversity and inclusion. This grant has enabled us to contribute to making the department, and Lewis & Clark as a whole, more diverse and inclusive.

Curriculum

Complement Your Education With One of These Minors

The most popular minors for our philosophy majors are Middle East and North African studies, religious studies, and rhetoric and media studies.


What Students Are Saying About Lewis & Clark

What Can You Do With a Degree in Philosophy?

Philosophy majors are one of the three highest scoring groups on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT), second on the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT), and sixth on the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). Together with the relevant science courses, a BA in philosophy provides unique preparation for medical school. Public agencies and businesses seek individuals who possess the writing, critical thinking, public speaking, and analysis skills that are fostered by philosophy. Recent graduates have gone on to enjoy careers in social work, the ministry, management, library science, law, government, education, computer science, and communication. In addition, some of our recent graduates now hold faculty positions in higher education.

Dedicated Faculty

Our expert professors are your expert mentors. You will learn directly from faculty (no graduate assistants here!) that are nationally recognized in their fields of study and who love to work with and learn from their students. Your professors will inspire you to be a thoughtful and passionate participant in a diverse world. Your small classes will support you as you explore new ideas, find your voice, and speak your truth.

Meet the Professors

 

Invest in Yourself

A private liberal arts education is often more affordable than you think. Last year, Lewis & Clark distributed over $74 million in assistance from institutional, federal, state, and private sources. Additionally, we’re so confident that our first-year students will graduate with their bachelor of arts degree in four years that if you don’t, we’ll cover the extra semester of tuition.

Find Your People

Our students are active in the Philosophy Club and regularly attend colloquiums where visiting philosophers, philosophy faculty, and fellow students present papers and posit questions about the fundamental natures of society, life, and knowledge. These talks are always followed by lively discussion, giving you a great chance to engage with the ideas you’re exploring in class. There are also occasional movie nights, where we watch a film and then discuss its philosophical implications, and hikes through the nearby Tryon Creek State Park.


Philosophy Events

March 20

“What Do We Owe the Very Poor?” with Per Milam

We will consider the duties of the affluent to those who are most disadvantaged.

April 5

“The Third Annual Jeffrey Douglas Jones Memorial Talk” by Elyse Purcell (The State University of New York at Oneonta)

While the COVID-19 global pandemic disrupted and endangered the health and welfare of people all over the world, there is one social group that has faced special discrimination in the aftermath of this world-wide catastrophe: people with disabilities. Within the United States, various response plans in Washington, Alabama, Kansas and Tennessee place the lives of people with disabilities in danger by rationing the care available.[1] Similarly, medical professionals in Europe and Asia have had to make difficult decisions when choosing whom to help when medical resources are so scarce.[2] Furthermore, children with special needs, such as those for autism or Down’s Syndrome, have had their services limited or curtailed within the United States.[3] Finally, workers with health conditions have been laid off or fired because their employers did not desire or were unable to pay for their needed health leaves.[4] The aim of this paper is to address these injustices by considering Iris Marion Young’s five faces of oppression – exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence - affecting people with disabilities in our post-pandemic world.[5] I argue further that people with disabilities have been silenced by a fearful public concerning these matters and as a result, have suffered an epistemic injustice. I conclude by providing a new model for embodiment as a better guide for inclusion, care and differentiated solidarity.

April 19

“Migration and Democracy: A Response to Song on the State’s Right to Border Control” by: Colin Patrick (Lewis & Clark College)

In a recent paper, “Why Does the State Have the Right to Control Immigration?”, Sarah Song provides a defense of the right of liberal democratic states to control movement, especially in-bound movement, of people across their borders. Against arguments for border control that are based a) in the need to preserve cultural/national identity, b) on an analogy to the freedom of association inherent to personal relationships, and c) on an analogy to the right of exclusion inherent to property rights—all three of which she rightly finds insufficient in justifying the state’s power over its points of entry—Song presents a defense of border control centered in the “democratic self-determination of a people.” I contend that Song likewise falls short of justifying this particular state power, chiefly because such justification would require an account of how this power is to be “weighed against the migrant’s claim to enter”—a claim that lies, by definition, outside the scope of her conception of democratic self-determination, and which Song therefore sees, incorrectly I argue, as outside the scope of her argument.

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