Spotlight | Philosophy 

The thing about MIT is that you show up there and people are talking philosophy in the halls all the time." 

— Selim Berker PhD ’07
Assistant Professor of Philosophy,
Harvard University

 

Outsized Influence

Consistently ranked among the top ten philosophy departments in the country, MIT’s small Philosophy section—just 12 full time professors—recently drew attention for its extraordinary success in placing its PhD graduates in tenure-track positions at top philosophy programs nationwide, among them Rutgers, Harvard, Princeton, University of Michigan–Ann Arbor, Yale, and Stanford.

Analyzing grad student placements in philosophy, the influential Leiter Reports puts MIT second only to New York University, whose philosophy program is nearly twice as large. Because obtaining a faculty position in philosophy is notoriously difficult—there are often 700 applicants for every appointment—many are wondering: what is the secret of MIT Philosophy's outsized success?

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