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Philosophy of Biology Graduate Programs

This wiki provides an unranked list of Ph.D. and terminal M.A. programs that have strengths in philosophy of biology. Since it's a wiki, you can edit it, so please do. The primary intended audience is prospective and current graduate students with interests in philosophy of biology who want to get the lay of the land by seeing who works where, and on what. Follow us on Twitter.

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Note to Prospective Graduate Students

The purpose of this wiki is to aid your search for philosophy of biology graduate programs that suit your tastes. It does so in two ways:

  • By listing as many philosophy of biology graduate programs as possible.
  • By making research into those programs more efficient and convenient by identifying the relevant philosophy of biology faculty and providing easy access to their bios, research interests, CVs, partial publication lists, etc.

However, while this site may be where your research into programs starts, it decidedly should not be where it ends. You need to dig around and do your due diligence—e.g., contact people within the programs[1]—in order to put yourself in the best possible position to make an informed decision about where to apply. The American Philosophical Association, for instance, provides a useful Guide to Graduate Programs that is worth consulting. Good luck!

Download All Ph.D. Programs as PDF

This entire list of Ph.D. programs with strengths in philosophy of biology can be downloaded. The text file that produced the PDF can be access on GitHubGist.

Ph.D. Programs (Australasia)

All programs reside in philosophy departments, unless otherwise specified.

Australian National University

| Department Website
| Additional Program Information [yes]
  • Kim Sterelny // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy of Biology, Evolution, Philosophy of Psychology and Philosophy of Mind (via website)

Macquarie University

| Department Website
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Rachael Brown // website 1, 2, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: The evolution of cognition and behaviour; the relationship between evolutionary developmental biology and the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis; model-based reasoning in biology and philosophy; and methodological issues in the study of animal behaviour and cognition (via website)
  • Karola Stotz // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Evolutionary, developmental and molecular biology, psychobiology and cognition (via website)

University of Otago (New Zealand)

| Department Website
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • James Maclaurin // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy of Biology, including innateness, fitness, theoretical morphology, biological diversity and universal darwinism (via website)

University of Sydney

| Department Website
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • David Braddon-Mitchell // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy of Mind and metaphysics, and cross borders into philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, ethics and political philosophy from time to time (via website)
  • Paul Griffiths // website 1, 2, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Causal foundations of biological information; evolutionary medicine; innateness and human nature; concept of the gene; developmental systems theory (via website)

Waikato University (New Zealand)

| Department Website
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Justine Kingsbury // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy of mind; philosophy of biology; critical thinking; aesthetics (especially philosophy of music) (via website)

Ph.D. Programs (Canada)

All programs reside in philosophy departments, unless otherwise specified.

University of Alberta

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [yes]
  • Ingo Brigandt // website, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Evolutionary developmental biology, molecular biology, systems biology, science and values
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes
  • Robert A. Wilson // website, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Eugenics, disability, and reproductive technology, species and natural kinds, levels of selection, group-level cognition and collective intentionality, the nature of biological individuals and organisms, kinship, intersections between biology, mind, and sociality.
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes

University of British Columbia

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • John Beatty // website 1, 2, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Theoretical foundations, methodology, and socio-political dimensions of genetics and evolutionary biology (via website)
  • Margaret Schabas // website 1, 2, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Overlap of biology and economics and the formation of bioeconomics (via website)
  • Christopher Stephens // website 1, 2, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Conceptual foundations of evolutionary theory, causation, the nature of evidence in evolutionary biology, reciprocal altruism, phylogenetic inference, and on models of the evolution of rationality (via website)

University of Calgary

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Megan Delehanty // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Models, explanation, causation (via PhilPapers entries)
  • Marc Ereshefsky // website 1, 2, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Species; Natural Kinds; Scientific Classification; Biological Individuality; Homology; Historicity; Microbiology (via website)
  • C. Kenneth Waters // website, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Causation, explanation, molecular biology, genetics, pluralism (via PhilPapers entries)

University of Toronto

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Ronald de Sousa (emeritus) // website 1, 2, PhilPapers
  • Mohan Matthen // website 1, 2, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy of mind, especially perception, philosophy of biology, natural selection (via PhilPapers profile)
  • Paul Thompson // website 1, 2, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Evolutionary theory, population genetics, mathematical modelling in biology, theory structure in biology, philosophy of medicine, and ethics (via website)
  • Denis Walsh // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Models, mechanisms, fitness, causation (via PhilPapers entries)

University of Waterloo

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Carla Fehr // website 1, 2, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy of biology, Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, Feminist Science Studies, Philosophy of Science, evolution (via website)
  • Katie Plaisance // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy of biology, Philosophical issues in the human behavioral sciences, public understanding of science, interactional expertise, and Socially Relevant Philosophy Of Science
  • Paul Thagard // website 1, 2, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy of science and medicine, cognitive science, philosophy of mind. Specific topics include analogy, coherence, decision making, conceptual change, explanatory reasoning, theoretical neuroscience, discovery and innovation, emotions and consciousness, moral psychology, and theories and explanations in biomedicine (via website)

University of Western Ontario

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Gillian Barker // website, PhilPapers
  • Eric Desjardins // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Biology, Environmental Philosophy and Bioethics (via website)
  • Devin Henry // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Ancient Philosophy, History & Philosophy of Science (esp. Philosophy of Biology) (via website)

Ph.D. Programs (United Kingdom)

All programs reside in philosophy departments, unless otherwise specified.

Birkbeck, University of London

| Department Website
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Robert Northcott // website 1, 2, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy of science, and especially the ‘special sciences’ such as biology and economics; metaphysics, especially the notions of causation and causal explanation; analysis of use of statistical techniques to measure causation, the place of causal explanation in evolutionary theory; role played by formal theory in economics (via website)

University of Bristol

| Department Website
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Samir Okasha // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialities: evolutionary theory, levels of selection, population genetics, social evolution, rational choice
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes

University of Cambridge (History and Philosophy of Science)

| Department Website
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Tim Lewens // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy of biology, philosophy of science, philosophical bioethics

University of Exeter (Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology)

| Department Website
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • John Dupre // website, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Particular interests include: biological classification, the relation of technical to everyday biological kinds and to traditional problems of essentialism; adaptationism and optimality; reductionism; indeterministic accounts of causality; evolution and the limitations of evolutionary psychology; and the biological basis of sex and gender. Also worked for several years on issues in the philosophy of economics (via website)
  • Sabina Leonelli // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Data-Intensive Science and Practices of Data Sharing and Re-Use; Open Science and Open Data; The Regulatory Role and Epistemic Impact of Bioinformatics in Biology and Biomedicine; Bio-Ontologies; History and Epistemic Status of Model Organism Research; History, Philosophy and Sociology of Plant Biology; The Role of Embodied Knowledge and Skills in Scientific Understanding; Abstraction and Modelling Processes in Biology; Distributed Cognition and Division of Scientific Labor; Unity, Disunity and Integration in Science: Early American Pragmatism; Science Policy and the Globalisation and Political Economy of Scientific Research (via website)
  • Staffan Muller-Wille // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: History and philosophy of systematics; history of heredity; history of race and kinship (via website)

King's College London

| Department Website
| Additional Program Information [no]

Lancaster University (Politics, Philosophy and Religion)

| Department Website
| Additional Program Information [no]

University of Leeds

| Department Website
| Additional Program Information [no]

London School of Economics (Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method)

| Department Website
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Jonathan Birch // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialities: Natural selection, evolution of social behaviour, evolutionary transitions, human evolution.
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes

University College London (Science and Technology Studies)

| Department Website
| Additional Program Information [no]

University of Oxford

| Department Website
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Ellen Clarke // website 1, , 2, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Biological Individuality, Evolutionary Transitions, evolution of cooperation, natural selection, Philosophy of biology, philosophy of science

Ph.D. Programs (United States)

All programs reside in philosophy departments, unless otherwise specified.

Arizona State University (Center for Biology and Society)

| Department Website
| No Entry in APA Guide Available
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Manfred Laubichler // website, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Theoretical biology and the history of biology using both empirical and conceptual approaches; role of gene regulatory networks in development and evolution; Theory of Complex Adaptive Systems, focusing on complexity as a unifying principle in the social and life sciences, including applications in biomedicine and the study of innovations (via website)
  • Jane Maienschein // website, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: History and philosophy of biology and the way biology, bioethics and bio-policy play out in society; embryology, genetics, and cell biology; epistemological standards, theories, and laboratory practices; studies of people and institutions, as well as the changing social, political, and legal context in which science thrive (via website)
  • Jason Scott Robert // website, CV
    • Specialties: Political and societal problems that intersect with life sciences; produces educational materials and tools for “talking productively” (via website)

Boston University

| Department Website
| No Entry in APA Guide Available
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Tian Yu Cao (Ph.D., University of Cambridge) // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy and History of Science (physics, biology and cognitive sciences), Epistemology, Metaphysics, Social and Political Philosophy, with special interests in philosophical issues related to (classical and global) modernity and postmodernity (via website)
  • Russell Powell // website, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Conceptual and methodological problems in evolutionary theory; epistemological and metaphysical dimensions of debates in contemporary bioethics, especially in relation to emerging biotechnologies (via website)

Carnegie Mellon University

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Kevin J.S. Zollman (Ph.D. UC Irvine) // website, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Game theory, agent based modeling, philosophy of science

City University of New York Graduate Center

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]

Columbia University

| Department Website
| No Entry in APA Guide Available
| Additional Program Information [no]

Duke University

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [yes]

Florida State University

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]

Indiana University (History and Philosophy of Science)

| Department Website
| No Entry in APA Guide Available
| Additional Program Information [no]

Michigan State University

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]

Stanford University

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]

Texas A&M University

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]

University of California, Davis

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [yes]
  • James R. Griesemer // website 1, 2, 3, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Evolutionary biology, genetics, developmental biology, ecology and systematics
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes
  • Roberta L. Millstein // website 1, 2, 3, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: History and philosophy of evolutionary biology and ecology, causation, chance, environmental ethics
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes

University of California, Irvine (Logic and Philosophy of Science)

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]

University of California, San Diego

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]

University of California, Santa Cruz

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther // website 1, 2, PhilPapers
    • Specialties:
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes

University of Chicago (Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science)

| Department Website
| No Entry in APA Guide Available
| Additional Program Information [no]

University of Cincinnati

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [yes]
  • Tony Chemero // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: neuroscience, ecological psychology, artificial life, dynamical systems and complex systems, cognitive science
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes
  • Valerie Hardcastle // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: neurobiology, neuropsychiatry and the law, embodied cognition
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes
  • Koffi N. Maglo // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: philosophy of biomedicine, genomics and race, race-based medicine, bioethics
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes
  • Thomas W. Polger // website 1, 2, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: multiple realization and realization; explanation in life, brain, and cognitive sciences; role of evolutionary theory in thinking about minds and consciousness; neuroscience and cognitive sciences
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes
  • Angela Potochnik // website 1, 2, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: methodology of population biology, behavioral ecology, explanation, idealization, socially engaged philosophy of science, logical empiricism
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes
  • Robert C. Richardson // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: evolutionary theory, developmental biology, cognitive science, theory change
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes
  • Robert A. Skipper, Jr. // website 1, 2, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: history of evolutionary genetics, evolutionary genetics, obesity science, controversies, explanation, socially engaged philosophy of science
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes

University of Kansas

| Department Website
| No Entry in APA Guide Available
| Additional Program Information [no]

University of Maryland, College Park

| Department Website
| No Entry in APA Guide Available
| Additional Program Information [no]

University of Minnesota, Twin Cities[3]

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [yes]
  • Alan C. Love // website 1, 2, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: History and philosophy of evolutionary developmental biology, evolutionary theory, developmental biology, functional morphology, conceptual change, explanatory pluralism, reductionism, the nature of historical science, interdisciplinary epistemology, and the structure of scientific problems
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes
  • William C. Wimsatt (part-time appointment, Fall semesters) // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: history and philosophy of biology, cultural evolution, evolutionary developmental biology, complex systems
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes

University of Missouri

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]

University of Notre Dame

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]

University of Pennsylvania

| Department Website
| No Entry in APA Guide Available
| Additional Program Information [yes]
  • Cristina Bicchieri // website, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: evolutionary game theory, evolution of social norms
  • Gary Hatfield // website, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: history of philosophy of biology, perception, neuroscience and psychology
  • Quayshawn Spencer (starts Spring 2015; currently at USF) // website 1, 2, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: population genetics, phylogenetics, biology and race
  • Michael Weisberg // website 1, 2, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: tradeoffs and Idealization in modeling, agent-based models in evolution and ecology, origin of life, biology and race

University of Pittsburgh (History and Philosophy of Science)

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]

University of Texas at Austin

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]

University of Utah

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]

University of Wisconsin-Madison

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Daniel Hausman // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Rational choice theory, game theory, the concept of measurement and health
  • Elliott Sober // website, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy of evolutionary biology, confirmation, explanation, reductionism, modeling, probability and statistics, parsimony
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes
  • Russ Shafer-Landau // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Evolutionary debunking arguments targeting morality
  • Lawrence Shapiro // website, CV, PhilPapers
  • Michael Titelbaum // website, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Bayesian epistemology

Washington University in St. Louis

| Department Website
| Entry in APA Guide
| Additional Program Information [no]
  • Carl F. Craver // website 1, 2, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy of neuroscience, theories of explanation, philosophy of psychology, cognitive neuropsychology
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes
  • Dennis DesChene // website, CV, PhilPapers
  • Ron Mallon // website, PhilPapers
  • Anya Plutynski // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: History and philosophy of biology, general philosophy of science, cancer biology, early 20th Century genetics, evolutionary theory, explanation, modeling.
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes

M.A. Programs

Concordia University, Montreal

{Wiki Program Page}

Louisiana State University

{Wiki Program Page}

  • Charles H. Pence // website, CV, papers, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: History and philosophy of biology, foundations of evolutionary theory, chance and evolution, fitness, causation
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes

Oregon State University

{Wiki Program Page}

Tufts University

{Wiki Program Page}

University of North Carolina at Charlotte (Ethics & Applied Philosophy)

{Wiki Program Page}

Virginia Tech

{Wiki Program Page}

  • Benjamin Jantzen // website 1, 2, CV, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy of Biology, Philosophy of Physics, General Philosophy of Science, Biophysics
    • Willing to work with new students? Yes
  • Richard M. Burian // website, PhilPapers
    • Specialties: Philosophy of Biology, History of Philosophy of Biology, History of Philosophy of Science, Science Studies
    • Willing to work with new students? Possibly; write to ask.

Standards, Practices, and Guidelines

  1. The criterion for program inclusion is just that a philosophy (or HPS) program have at least one full-time faculty member who self-identifies as a philosopher of biology.
  2. The standard of evidence required to make the list is an official (or personal) university-affiliated website—or a publicly-accessible CV—that lists philosophy of biology as a primary research interest.
  3. Philosophers who have made contributions to the philosophy of biology but who do not list phil bio as an AOS/AOC are usually not listed.
  4. Affiliated, part-time, and emeritus faculty who work closely with graduate students should be labelled as such inside parentheses next to their names.
  5. Bioethics, environmental ethics, philosophy of neuroscience/cognitive science, philosophy of medicine, and history of biology—in and of themselves—are not counted as philosophy of biology.

A longer version of these guidelines is available.

Contents

How to Contribute

This is a wiki, so anyone can contribute. No account is needed—though you are encouraged to create one—and all changes can be rolled back, so edit with a free hand.

Making Edits

You can make edits in one of two ways: by clicking 'Edit', which enables WYSIWYG (or visual) editing, ala a wordprocessor. Alternately, you can click 'Edit source', which allows you to edit the wiki markup in plaintext. Use whichever method you prefer. It takes a little longer to open the editing window in visual mode because the server has to translate wiki markup to html on the fly. So be patient. If things are too sluggish, you can switch over to 'Edit source'.

Wiki formatting/markup is very straightforward, and all you need to do is mimic the current entries since formatting is standardized.

If programs or faculty have been overlooked—which is assuredly the case—you are encouraged to add them, even if you are not a member of that department. Also, information will date rapidly, so by all means help keep things up to date.

Additional Program Information

Every program listed also has a separate page where additional information can be provided to prospective students. While the style and format of this main page should be kept consistent, individual pages can take any form whatsoever. To edit one of these pages, simply follow the link entitled 'Additional Program Information' underneath the department listing of interest and edit that page.

The following programs have added considerably to their pages. Feel free to mimic them.

Browse Programs by Category

Below are two ways to browse programs by category. The first sorts all programs by number of philosophy of biology faculty. The second sorts U.S. programs by state.

You can find a listing of Australasian and Canadian programs by specialty on this page. Once that list includes programs from other parts of the world, they will be incorporated. As always, prospective students should fact-check the faculty numbers listed because academics change jobs frequently. (Note: 'P' stands for Page.)

All Ph.D. Programs by Number of Faculty
1 Faculty Member‎ (19 P)
2 Faculty Members‎ (9 P)
3 Faculty Members‎ (10 P)
4 Faculty Members‎ (5 P)
5 Faculty Members‎ (3 P)
6+ Faculty Members‎ (2 P)
U.S. Ph.D. Programs by State
Arizona‎ (1 P)
California‎ (5 P)
Florida‎ (1 P)
Illinois‎ (1 P)
Indiana‎ (2 P)
Kansas‎ (1 P)
Maryland‎ (1 P)
Massachusetts‎ (1 P)
Michigan‎ (1 P)
Minnesota‎ (1 P)
New York‎ (2 P)
North Carolina‎ (1 P)
Ohio‎ (1 P)
Pennsylvania‎ (3 P)
Texas‎ (2 P)
Utah‎ (1 P)
Wisconsin‎ (1 P)


Notes

  1. ↑ This site is not in the business of giving prospective students advice—on how to select programs or anything else—but it can be very helpful and illuminating to contact graduate students currently enrolled in departments you are considering and asking if they would be willing to share their impressions of and experience in the programs. The worst that can happen is that they say 'no'. Of course, what they share must be taken with a grain of salt since everyone's experiences differ, and disgruntled students will paint a radically different picture than contented ones. For that reason, seeking out multiple sources can be worthwhile.
  2. ↑ Though he does not list philosophy of biology as a current AOS, Kitcher writes on his faculty profile page—accessed 2014-11-18—that he is willing to work with philosophy of biology graduate students.
  3. ↑ Some of the Resident Fellows at the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science also have philosophy of biology interests.
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