Undergraduate Program

 Aesthetics investigates the source and value of properties like beauty and the role of art in our lives. Is beauty out in the world or in the eye of the beholder? Do you have to experience it for yourself, or can you know something is beautiful from testimony or on general grounds? Why do people make art? Can art be aesthetically valuable even if it's jarring, disturbing, or immoral? Is Beyonce as good as Beethoven? Does art need to be creative or original? Does art have a distinctive capacity to teach us about the world, or can it only help us appreciate things we already knew?

Buddhist philosophy centers around the problem of suffering, the diagnosis of its cause in ignorance (with a focus on the human cognitive apparatus), and the promise of its overcoming through knowledge and various practices. Buddhist philosophy, during its 2,500-year-old history across South, Southeast, Central, and East Asia, and now increasingly in Europe and the Americas, has developed sophisticated metaphysics, epistemology, theories of mind, theories of language, and moral psychology, etc. What is suffering? What causes suffering? Do we have a self? Why or why not? What is the relationship between conditions and essence of things and events in the world? Is our perception of beings and events in the world reflective of those objects or a projection of our mind? Do beings and events in the world exist on their own or depend on others? Where does the sense of independence come from for dependent beings? How do we know anything? How do we know how we know? Etc. 

Epistemology is the study of knowledge and related notions. It addresses questions such as the following: what is knowledge?; how much knowledge do we have?; what is it for a belief to be justified or rational?; what is it for degrees of belief to be justified or rational?; what is evidence?. In addition to those more traditional branches of epistemology, there is also social epistemology, which addresses issues and questions that arise from the fact that much of our knowledge and beliefs are acquired through the testimony of others, and formal epistemology, which aims to use mathematical models to tackle epistemological questions. 

Ethics is the branch of philosophy concerned with how one ought to live. What does it mean for a life to go well rather than badly? How should one treat others? What choices and preferences are rational? The field sub-divides into normative ethics, which develops general theories of right and wrong action such as utilitarianism, contractualism, and virtue ethics; applied ethics, which examines particular topics such as the morality of eating meat or our duties to assist others; meta-ethics, which asks about the nature of moral claims themselves—are they objective truths or expressions of attitude?; and moral psychology, which explores how motives, emotions, and reasoning shape our ethical choices.

The early modern period (roughly, 1600–1800) was a time when philosophy was reinventing itself. Old certainties gave way to bold new ideas, and thinkers began charting fresh paths in understanding knowledge, reality, morality, politics, and more. It was also the age of the scientific revolution—before “science” and “philosophy” were separate fields—so figures like Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Hume were not only philosophers but also pioneering contributors to mathematics and physics. In our early modern philosophy courses, you’ll read their works firsthand, grapple with their arguments, and see how debates from centuries ago still shape the way we think today.

The Middle Ages (roughly 500-1500 AD) were a period of intense philosophical activity; during these years, medieval thinkers worked out the orthodox theologies of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, laid the conceptual foundations of modern science, and developed original, striking, ideas and arguments in all the main areas of philosophy - many of which still influence current debates. When not busy with these things, they also invented the university. Courses in the history of medieval philosophy introduce students to some of the best work and best minds of this era. At Rutgers, they bring medieval thinkers into conversation with contemporary "analytic" philosophy, with an eye to whether the arguments really are good ones, and the theories really are still competitive in the marketplace of ideas.

Metaphysics asks philosophical questions about reality (as opposed to what we know about reality, how it ought to be, how we represent it, etc.) Do there exist nonphysical objects (such as the number 5)? Are the properties of objects (such as the property of being a carrot) distinct from the objects that have those properties? Could reality have been different from the way it actually is, and if so, what does that mean? What does it mean for one event to cause another? Are some objects more fundamental than others; and if so, how do fundamental and nonfundamental objects relate to one another?

Chinese philosophy deals with various philosophical debates in its 2,500 years of history, the normative values contested within the tradition, and ongoing dialogues with other traditions in the global conversations of philosophy. Chinese philosophy is often divided into Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism, Buddhism, and others, although the historical validity of those categories and boundaries among them are often challenged. Most contemporary scholarship on Chinese philosophy focuses on the moral-political discussions in the canonical texts and traditional commentaries, although there are increasing interests in works on metaphysics, epistemology, language, logic and others as well. Here are some questions that have attracted the attention of contemporary scholars: What is a good life in the Chinese tradition? What makes us human? What virtues are required for human flourishing? What is the source of morals? Is human artifice the source of virtue or evil? Is relationality essential or accidental to being human? What kind of human relationality is ideal for a good life? What is the relationship between the personal, the familial, and the political domains? Does a ruler need to be virtuous? What is the source of political authority, virtue or power? Can power regulate itself in politics? Is filial piety relevant in politics or should it be? Should politics be uniformly impartial? Can preferential treatment of family members ever be justified in politics? What is the value of history in moral-political reasoning? Does Chinese philosophy have any contemporary relevance or value at all?

Philosophy of language studies fundamental issues surrounding language. For instance, it explores what languages, words, and sentence are, by investigating the nature of linguistic meaning, the range of special actions we can perform in virtue of having a language, and the ways words and sentences can pick out external objects and frame thoughts about the world around us. It also investigates what it is to know something so complicated as a human language, by investigating the nature of linguistic rules, and the kinds of cognitive states that comprise knowledge of language. Philosophers of language also study the ways that our public languages and thinking relate, and how language relates to other forms of social interaction, and how we use language to communicate efficiently. We also examine mathematical representations of meaning and linguistic form, and study their complexity. 

Philosophy of law is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature, foundations, and purpose of law in general, as well as issues that arise within specific domains of law such as criminal law, property law, and tort law. On the general side, philosophers take up questions such as “what is law?” and “how should laws be interpreted?” and even “is there an obligation to obey the law?” On the specific side, philosophers ask when it is permissible to criminalize conduct (must it be immoral?), what justifies punishment (if anything), which punishments are permissible, and what is the best underlying justification of property rights, among many other questions. Throughout these discussions, there are questions about the relationship between law and morality and between law and society. Is law just a matter of social choice, or are there deeper moral foundations? Must law reflect moral considerations? These questions are pursued both in philosophy departments and law schools, also under the heading of “jurisprudence.”

Philosophy of mind examines the nature of mental capacities and the mental states they constitute. Informed by empirical research, it investigates fundamental questions about the function of perception, belief, imagination, and emotions. When we see a red apple, what is the relation between our mental state and the apple in the world? How is that relation different when we imagine a red apple? Philosophical analysis provides conceptual clarity and identifies the deeper questions underlying scientific research, while empirical findings from neuroscience, psychology, and other areas of cognitive science guide philosophical theorizing.

Philosophy of physics investigates the implications of various physical theories for the nature of reality and our place in it. Questions include: what is the nature of space and time according to classical as well as relativistic physics? What does quantum mechanics indicate about the fundamental nature of reality, and is the notion of observation or measurement somehow central to it? How can physics explain the apparent temporal asymmetry of our experience (ice melts and coffee cools; we remember the past and not the future; etc.) when the underlying laws appear to be symmetric in time, allowing just as much for the time-reversed behavior we never experience? How and to what extent do our best fundamental physical theories account for our ordinary experience of the world? What is the relationship between physics and the other sciences?

Philosophy of religion is a heterogeneous subfield of philosophy. Any distinctively philosophical questions that arise when thinking about religion will fall under this heading. This includes matters of ethics, politics, epistemology, metaphysics, and virtually every other philosophical discipline. For example: Are actions right or wrong because of divine commands, or would there be right and wrong even if no God existed? Should there be a prohibition against offering religious reasons for public policies? Is religious faith a matter of believing against one’s evidence (“believing what you know ain’t so”, as Mark Twain put it), or is it compatible with having compelling reasons? Does the concept of an absolutely perfect being make sense; and if so, would such a being resemble the God of monotheistic religions? Since the questions religion raises are so varied, the field attracts experts from every part of philosophy. Philosophy of religion also requires deep knowledge of different religious traditions. The philosophical questions that arise in Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and other religions are tightly bound up with the distinctive theological and practical differences that characterize them.

Philosophy of science studies the nature of science, its theory and practice, focusing on the methodology and epistemology of science. Some central questions include: what makes a discipline a science? Does science discover the objective truth about the world? How and why do scientific theories change over time? To what extent do observation and experiment determine which theories we accept? What makes for a good scientific explanation? General philosophy of science asks these questions of science in general or as a whole; there are in addition philosophical areas devoted to particular types of scientific theories: the philosophy of physics, philosophy of biology, and so on.

Social and political philosophy addresses questions pertaining to collective human life and the relationship between individuals and society. What is the origin, nature, and scope of political society? What, if any, limits should there be on political authority? How should political power be organized? How should the benefits (e.g., wealth) and burdens (e.g., punishment) of society be distributed? How should we understand justice, freedom and equality? What is the nature and value of individual rights? What role do class, gender and race play in arranging and assessing social and political structures?