About the Department

Our Mission

With an active research faculty working primarily in the analytic tradition, the UH philosophy department has been recognized as among the best M.A. programs in the nation.

The mission of the UH philosophy department includes the education of both M.A. students and undergraduate majors, and many undergraduates take courses in our department to satisfy the University's core requirements.

Most of our M.A. students enter the program with the expectation of eventually going on to a Ph.D. program in philosophy, and our department regularly places students in strong Ph.D. programs.

Our Accomplished Faculty

The department has nine tenured and tenure-track faculty members. They work in a broad range of areas including aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, history of philosophy, metaphysics, moral psychology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. Over the last ten years (since 2014) our eight tenured faculty members have published: six monographs (three with Oxford, one with Routledge, one with Basic Books and one with Polity); seven edited and coedited collections (two with Oxford, one with Cambridge, three with Routledge, and one with Blackwell); and articles in journals including American Philosophical Quarterly, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Journal of Philosophy, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, and Synthese).

Members of the faculty are also regularly represented on programs at philosophy meetings such as those of the American Philosophical Association, the Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology and the Society for Philosophy and Psychology.

To see the requirements for promotion and tenure in our department, please click here. To see the departmental bylaws, please click here.

Recent Faculty Publications

Monographs

Justin Coates (2023). In Praise of Ambivalence. Oxford University Press.
Josh Weisberg (2023). Explanatory Optimism about the Hard Problem of Consciousness. Routledge.
David Phillips (2022). Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics: A Guide. Oxford University Press.

Edited Volumes

Luis Oliveira (2023). Externalism About Knowledge. Oxford University Press.
Luis Oliveira (2022). Propositional and Doxastic Justification: New Essays on Their Nature and Significance. Routledge.
Josh Weisberg (2022). Qualitative Consciousness: Themes from the Philosophy of David Rosenthal. Cambridge University Press.
Josh Weisberg (2022). Consciousness: Blackwell Readings in Philosophy (w/ David Rosenthal). Wiley-Blackwell.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Helen Hattab (2024). “Scholastic Aristotelian Methods in Relation to Analysis and Synthesis in Descartes’ and Hobbes’ Philosophies”, in Traditions of Analysis and Synthesis, eds. B. Newman and J. Schickore, Dordrecht: Springer.
Christy Mag Uidhir (2024). “Does Art Pluralism Lead to Eliminativism?” (w/ PD Magnus), Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics 61(1): 73-80.
Luis Oliveira (2024). “Propositional Justification and Doxastic Justification” (w/ Paul Silva), in Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence, eds. M. Lasonen-Aarnio and C. LittleJohn, Routledge.
David Phillips (2024) “Whewell and Moral Philosophy,” in William Whewell: Victorian Polymath, ed. L.M. Verburgt, University of Pittsburgh Press.
Justin Coates (2023). “A Defense of Weak Moralism,” Journal of Ethics.
Helen Hattab (2023). “Individuation and New Matter Theories in Late 16^th and Early 17^th Century Scholasticism”, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 97(4): 603-628.
Yael Lowenstein (2023). “Reasons-Responsiveness, Control and the Negligence Puzzle,” Philosophical Perspectives.
Christy Mag Uidhir and Luis Oliveira (2023). “Higher-Order Evidence for Aesthetic Subjectivists,” British Journal of Aesthetics. 63(2): 235-249.
Luis Oliveira (2023). “Externalism About Knowledge: A Brief Introduction,” in Externalism About Knowledge, ed. L. Oliveira. Oxford University Press.
Luis Oliveira (2023). “God and Gratuitous Evil: Between the Rock and the Hard Place,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 94(3): 317-345.
Luis Oliveira (2023). “Skeptical Theism: A Panoramic Overview (Part I),” Philosophy Compass, 18 (10): 1-14
Luis Oliveira (2023). “Skeptical Theism: A Panoramic Overview (Part II),” Philosophy Compass, 18 (10): 1-11
Alejandro Vesga (2023). “No Brute Facts: The Principle of Sufficient Reason in Ordinary Thought” (w/ Scott Partington and Shaun Nichols), Cognition.
Alejandro Vesga (2023). “Communicating Testimonial Commitment,” Ergo.
Justin Coates (2022). “Degrees of Responsibility,” Oxford Handbook on Moral Responsibility, eds. D. Pereboom and D. Nelkin, Oxford University Press.
Helen Hattab (2022). “Renaissance Aristotelianism(s)”, in The Cambridge History of Philosophy of the Scientific Revolution, ed. D. Jalobeanu and D. Marshall Miller, Cambridge University Press.
Yael Lowenstein (2022). “Against the Standard Solution to the Grandfather Paradox,” Synthese.
Christy Mag Uidhir (2022). “Appreciating Covers” (w/ PD & Cristyn Magnus), Nordic Journal of Aesthetics 31(63): 106-125.
Christy Mag Uidhir (2022). “Art Concept Pluralism Undermines the Definitional Project” (w/ PD Magnus). The British Journal of Aesthetics. 61(1): 81-84.
Luis Oliveira (2022). “Epistemic Consent and Doxastic Justification,” in Propositional and Doxastic Justification: New Essays on Their Nature and Significance, eds. L. Oliveira and P. Silva. Routledge.
Luis Oliveira (2022) “Hermeneutic Injustices: Practical and Epistemic” in Interpretation und Geltung, edited by Andreas Mauz and Christiane Tietz. Brill.
Luis Oliveira (2022) “Defending the Free Will Defense: A Reply to Sterba,” Religions 13 (11): 1126-1138.
Tamler Sommers (2022). “Metaskepticism,” Oxford Handbook on Moral Responsibility, eds. D. Pereboom and D. Nelkin, Oxford University Press.