Graduate placement
PhD program alumni
PhD program alumni
Here is a complete list of PhDs awarded by the department since 1998.
Graduates are listed by year that their degree was awarded. Updates to a graduate’s employment status are made as we receive them. Due to timing issues, no PhDs were awarded in 2017 or 2018.
To briefly summarize the outcomes from 1998 through 2014: 20 of 25 found fulltime academic jobs after graduating. 11 of 25 secured tenure-track positions.
Although it is natural to be interested in numbers like these as a prospective graduate student, it should be noted that the sample size of actual graduates is rather small. When graduates do not go on to academic work, do not find tenure-track positions, or find but leave tenure-track positions, they often do so for idiosyncratic reasons such as geographic or family preferences.
Prop-Oriented Make-Believe in Metaphor and Morality (chair: Brad Armour-Garb)
Towards a Trustworthy and Responsible Artificial Intelligence (chair: Jason D'Cruz)
Equality and Justice in Aristotle's Theory of Friendship (chair: Nathan Powers)
Causal Exclusion and Free Will Arguments (chair: Ron McClamrock)
Genres, Communities, and Practice (chair: P.D. Magnus)
Interpersonal Forgiveness is the Recognition that Justice is Attained (chair: Rachel Cohon)
The Role of Empathy in Moral Inquiry (chair: Jason D'Cruz)
Partially Pretend Things: A Semantic Pretense Account of Plural Quantification (Chair: Brad Armour-Garb)
The Obligation of Promises (chair: Rachel Cohon)
An Extension of Social Justice: A Rawlsian Application of Justice for the Intellectually Disabled (chair: Jon Mandle)
Change and Continuity in Biology (chair: P.D. Magnus)
Adjudicating the Simulation Theory / Theory Theory Debate (with Special Attention to the Case of Autism Spectrum Disorders) (chair: Brad Armour-Garb)
What Monsters May They Be: The Moral Status of Macabre Fascination and the Paradox of Horror (chair: Jason D'Cruz)
The Concept of Human Dignity and Its Role in Bioethical Discourse (chair: Jason D'Cruz)
The Self in Hume's Treatise (chair: Rachel Cohon)
Expecting the Unexpected: A Precautionary Principle Addressing Unconsidered Dangers (chair: Kristen Hessler)
Beyond Permissibility: Traversing the many moral pitfalls of abortion (a virtue ethics approach) (chair: Bonnie Steinbock)
Plato and the Sophists: Eristic Practice, Cognition, and Perception (chair Nathan Powers)
Motives, reasons, and morality (chair: Rachel Cohon)
The Role of The Simple Natures and Method in Descartes' Meditations (chair: Robert Meyers)
Democracy, Political Externalities, & the Labour-Process (chair: Kristen Hessler)
Locke's Theory of Justified Resistance: An Explanation and Defense (chair: Jon Mandle)
Toward Explaining the Gap: How a Particular View of Explanation Underwrites the Explanatory Gap (chair: Ron McClamrock)
Illusion in the Commonplace: Reinterpreting Ernst Gombrich's Concept of Illusion (chair: Robert Howell)
The Case for Character: A Reply to Situationism (chair: Rachel Cohon)
Phronesis After Situationism (chair: Jason D'Cruz)
Why the Basic Structure is Basic: a defense of the doctrinal autonomy of political philosophy (chair: Jon Mandle)
The I think, Self-awareness, and Reflexivity -- a Reconstructed Kantian Model of Self-awareness (chair: Robert Howell)
Resolving Incomparability (chair: Rachel Cohon)
Proactive Procreation: The Ethical Implications of New Genetic Technologies on Parental Obligations to Future Offspring (chair: Bonnie Steinbock)
Empirically Grounded Metaphors in Science (chair: P.D. Magnus)
Mental Causation: A Nonreductivist Perspective (chair: Ron McClamrock)
Paul Horwich on Truth and 'True' -- with Particular Consideration of the Generalization Problem (chair: Brad Armour-Garb)
Kant's Deduction of the Political Ideal (chair: Jon Mandle)
Winner of University at Albany's 2006 Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation award
Hegel's Response to Meta-critical Skepticism in the Phenomenology of Spirit (chair: Robert Howell)
Winner of University at Albany's 2005 Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation award
Leaving Morality Where It Is: The Particularistic Approach to Morality and the Problems of Contingency, Happiness, and Responsibility (chair: John Kekes)
Personal Identity and Moral Responsibility (chair: Josiah Gould)
Autonomy in End-of-life Decision Making (chair: Bonnie Steinbock)
Upward Collapses and Downward Explosions: The Emergence of the Problem of Individuation in Plato and Aristotle and the Solutions Proposed by Porphyry and Boethius (chair: Josiah Gould)
Understanding Moral Weakness (chair: John Kekes)
Explaining Consciousness: Naturalizing the Phenomenological (chair: Ron McClamrock)
The Role of Intentions in Perceptual Demonstrative Utterances (chair: Ron McClamrock)
Worldly Thoughts: A Theory of Embedded Cognition (chair: Ron McClamrock)
Although we try to make sure this information is correct, some of it may be out of date, incomplete, or simply mistaken. If you have any corrections, changes, or suggestions, please contact the department and let us know.