Philosophy

Thinking Rigorously, Examining Critically, Reflecting Deeply

The Department of Philosophy at Fordham

What is knowledge? What is reality? How do we determine what is moral?

The discipline of philosophy addresses just these sorts of questions. As a student of philosophy at Fordham, you will have the opportunity to reflect on the most fundamental questions of human existence. You will learn to think critically about the world around you, to question unchecked assumptions, and to think more deeply about your life.

In accordance with its Jesuit heritage, Fordham’s Philosophy Department is dedicated to “contemplation in action.” Students are challenged to become insightful thinkers, compassionate persons, and engaged citizens.

Current and Prospective students are invited to peruse our undergraduate and graduate pages, explore our faculty/student directory, learn about our active department, or contact us.

Philosophy News

‘What Makes Us Human’—Philosophy Students Take on AI

‘What Makes Us Human’—Philosophy Students Take on AI

As AI becomes more “human,” how can actual humans differentiate themselves and their work? Professor Stephen Grimm’s students are exploring that question and others in their Philosophy of Human Nature course this semester. “What we’re really trying to figure out is whether AI could replicate human nature and whether in the future, [when]we’ll be living …

Machine Learning Isn’t Just for Computer Science Majors, Professors’ Award-Winning Study Shows

Machine Learning Isn’t Just for Computer Science Majors, Professors’ Award-Winning Study Shows

Machine learning doesn’t have to be hard to grasp. In fact, learning to apply it can even be fun—as shown by three Fordham professors’ efforts that earned them a new prize for innovative instruction. Their method for introducing machine learning in chemistry classes has been honored with the inaugural James C. McGroddy Award for Innovation …

New Academic Society Unites Scholars Worldwide

New Academic Society Unites Scholars Worldwide

When graduate student Noah Hahn was invited to a conference halfway around the world, he didn’t realize it would become the birthplace of an international academic society—and that he would become one of its inaugural members.  “It turned out to be the happiest accident of my graduate school career,” said Hahn, a doctoral student in …

Fordham Launches ‘Visions of the Good’ for Bronx High School Students

Fordham Launches ‘Visions of the Good’ for Bronx High School Students

What is your vision of a good life? How should a person live? What responsibility do we have to others in our lives? Fifteen Bronx high school students will get to explore these questions this summer thanks to a Knowledge in Freedom Grant from the Teagle Foundation.They’ll also get to explore a college campus and …

Using Philosophy to Master the Markets: Catching Up with Jared Woodard, Ph.D.

Using Philosophy to Master the Markets: Catching Up with Jared Woodard, Ph.D.

Jared Woodard, Ph.D., was on course for a career in academia when he became more acutely interested in macroeconomics and global markets. He was pursuing his Ph.D. in philosophy at Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences when his focus shifted from contemporary continental European philosophy to analytic metaphysics—as he describes it, the philosophy of …

Babette Babich on Love, Social Media, and Megxit

Babette Babich on Love, Social Media, and Megxit

“We’re all of us royals,” says Babette Babich, Ph.D., professor of philosophy. As the Duke and Duchess of Sussex attempt to get out of the media fishbowl, the rest of us are trying to get in—seeking as many “likes” as possible in our social media feed. But are the likes the same as love? And …

MaYaa Boateng: Out of the Comfort Zone

MaYaa Boateng: Out of the Comfort Zone

If there’s one thing that MaYaa Boateng, FCLC ’13, has learned from acting, it’s how to be fearless. This past spring, the Fordham Theatre alumna starred in Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview, which had its world premiere off-Broadway at Soho Rep (and was later named one of the best plays of 2018 by Time magazine and The New …

Vatican Astronomer: Where Galileo and Pope Francis Meet

Vatican Astronomer: Where Galileo and Pope Francis Meet

When we stare into the heavens, are we moved more by religious epiphany or scientific wonder? For Guy Consolmagno, S.J., it has been both, perhaps in equal doses. In a talk on the Fordham campus on Feb. 26, Brother Consolmagno, the director of the Vatican Observatory, said that religion and science enjoy a long partnership …

‘Faith on Tap’ Talk Highlights the Power of Spiritual Resistance, from the 1940s to Today

‘Faith on Tap’ Talk Highlights the Power of Spiritual Resistance, from the 1940s to Today

Some of Brenna Moore’s best friends are no longer around. In fact, she’s never met them. They were part of the 1940s French Resistance. On a rainy Wednesday night this month, Moore, an associate professor of theology at Fordham, spoke about her friends to a few dozen recent Fordham graduates who filled the brick-walled backroom …

Fordham Remembers Kenneth Gallagher, Philosophy Professor Emeritus

Fordham Remembers Kenneth Gallagher, Philosophy Professor Emeritus

In the Philosophy of Knowledge (Sheed and Ward, 1964), the late Kenneth Gallagher, professor emeritus of philosophy at Fordham, described knowledge as a “supremely personal act.” “The existing universal which is human communion, in which my thought is born, is the medium through which I belong to the cognitional universal, to truth,” wrote Gallagher, who …

Fordham Mourns Dominic Balestra, Professor of Philosophy

Fordham Mourns Dominic Balestra, Professor of Philosophy

Fordham University mourns the death on Nov. 8 of Dominic Balestra, Ph.D., professor of philosophy, former chair of the department, and former dean of the faculty of arts and sciences. “Today Fordham mourns one of its leading lights,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “Dominic Balestra has been a presence at the University …