Department of Philosophy

Welcome to Philosophy

About the Department

The Department of Philosophy was established in 1983. It offers the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts, and participates in two interdisciplinary doctoral programs, ASPECT and STS.

It has nine regular faculty members working in a variety of philosophical fields, particularly the philosophy of science, the history of philosophy, and moral and political philosophy. The department chair is James Klagge. The director of graduate studies is William FitzPatrick. The director of undergraduate studies is Joseph Pitt.

Please use the links to the left to explore information about the members of the philosophy community at Virginia Tech, the degrees and courses we offer, and past and future events in the department.

For more information about studying philosophy at Virginia Tech, see our video, "Philosophy at Virginia Tech: Unravel Your World," in either Windows Media, Quicktime, or RealMedia formats. (Narrated and directed by Rosa Mayorga, with Saurabh Patel, Paryank Shah, Vinay Lakhani.)

Recent Books

Members of the department have recent or forthcoming books:

Deborah Mayo and Aris Spano, eds., Error and Inference: Recent Exchanges on Experimental Reasoning, Reliability, and the Objectivity and Rationality of Science, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

 
Causatin

Walter Ott, Causation and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2009.

 
Witt

James Klagge, Wittgenstein in Exile, MIT Press, forthcoming in 2010.

 
Heid

Joseph Pitt, Doing Philosophy of Technology: Essays in a Pragmatist Spirit, Springer, forthcoming in 2010.

 

Facebook

Facebook users can join the Philosophy Department facebook group. We'll use the group to post event notices and philosophy-related links.

Contact

The department is located on the second floor of Major Williams Hall on the Upper Quad of Virginia Tech's Blacksburg campus (building 7 on the campus map).

For general correspondence and inquiries, please use the following address:

Philosophy Department
229 Major Williams Hall (0126)
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061 U.S.A.

Phone: (540) 231-4564
Fax: (540) 231-6367
Email: phildept (at) vt.edu