Placement of MA graduates
The table below gives for each year from 2013 to 2024 the number of MA degrees conferred that year, the number of those students seeking placement in a philosophy PhD program, and information on programs to which they were successfully admitted (with funding). Each program listed admitted just one of our graduates that year unless a number in parenthesis indicates multiple admissions.
Year | # of MA degrees | # seeking PhD Placement | Placement information |
2013 | 4 | 2 | University of California – Santa Cruz, University of Massachussetts – Amherst |
2014 | 3 | 3 | Johns Hopkins University, University of Miami, Arizona State University |
2015 | 4 | 4 | University of California – Davis (2), University of Missouri – Columbia, Arizona State University |
2016 | 4 | 2 | |
2017 | 5 | 2 | University of Texas – Austin, University of South Florida |
2018 | 3 | 1 | Florida State University |
2019 | 5 | 4 | University of Kent, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, University of Florida (2) |
2020 | 0 | 0 | |
2021 | 2 | 1 | University of Florida |
2022 | 2 | 2 | York University |
2023 | 0 | 0 | |
2024 | 2 | 2 | University of Texas – Austin, University of Florida |
PhD Degrees, Theses and Placement
The information below gives for each year going back to 2000 the year of the PhD, the title of the dissertation, the dissertation director, and the most recent information available regarding an academic position or academic-adjacent position.*
Year | Name and Dissertation | Supervisor | Placement information |
---|---|---|---|
2024 | James Wetzel, The Platonic Inheritance of Aquinas’ Doctrine of Creation | John Palmer | Adjunct Lecturer, University of Florida |
2024 | Shadi Heidarifar, The Conflation Of Epistemic And Moral Virtues: An Avicennan Response | Jaime Ahlberg & Amber Ross | Assistant Professor in Bioethics, Roseman University of Health Sciences (Nevada) |
2023 | Chris Becker, The Value of Work | Jaime Ahlberg | |
2023 | James Gillespie, An Agent-Centered Theory of Epistemic Rationality | John Biro | Education Specialist, University of Florida Graduate School |
2023 | Rusong Huang, Mental Anti-Representationalism: The Prospects for a Noncognitivist Account of Psychological Discourse | Gene Witmer | Adjunct Lecturer, University of Florida |
2023 | Mihana Mitchell, Social Suffering: A Moral Concept | Jaime Ahlberg | Adjunct Lecturer, University of North Florida |
2023 | David Ortiz, Pleasure, Perception, and Natural Harmony in Plato and Epicurus | John Palmer | Language Arts Teacher, East Hill Christian School (Pensacola, Florida) |
2023 | James Simpson, A Defense of Fallibilism | John Biro | Adjunct Lecturer, University of Florida |
2017 | Ron Claypool, Locke on Ideas | Stewart Duncan | Assistant Professor, Santa Fe College |
2017 | Andreas Falke, Excluding Thoroughly: Theories of Causation and Their Impact on the Exclusion Problem | Gene Witmer | Head of Marketing at Dialog Ticket Translation Agency |
2014 | Edward Perez, On the Ontological Status of Propositions: Why Linguistic Logical Form Cannot Ground Propositional Structure | Michael Jubien & Greg Ray | Lecturer, Coastal Carolina University |
2012 | Kirk Walker, We Do Not Have Free Will: A Critique of Libertarianism | Robert D’Amico | Adjunct Professor at Florida Southwestern State College |
2012 | Eugenio Zaldivar, Substance and the Substance of Minds in Descartes and Locke | Stewart Duncan | Associate Professor, Santa Fe College |
2011 | Shawn Burtoft, Cognitive Significance and Coextensionality | John Biro | |
2011 | Carlos Bernal Pulido, Living Together Within a Legal Practice: a Theory of Law As Collective Intentional Activity | Kirk Ludwig | Associate Professor, Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics at Macquarie University |
2011 | Casey Woodling, Intentionality and Self-Knowledge | John Biro | Assistant Dean of Academic Outreach and Continuing Education and Senior Lecturer, Coastal Carolina University |
2011 | Ana Andrei, The Nature and Significance of the Explanatory Gap | Kirk Ludwig | |
2010 | Joy Hayes, Liberalism, Communitarianism, and Self-Determination | Marina Oshana | Vice President of Ethics & Compliance at Activism Blizzard |
2009 | Ching-E Ang, Homosexual Poets and Successful Gangsters: An Examination of Aristotelian Naturalism, and the Skeptical Worries Confronting It | David Copp | Senior Lecturer, Idaho State University |
2009 | Jesse Butler, Clearing a Path for Conventionalist Modal Semantics | Kirk Ludwig | |
2009 | Ivana Simic, Intuitive A Priori Knowledge: Reliability and Rationality | Kirk Ludwig | Assistant Director, UF Internal Review Boards |
2009 | Elisabeth Shortsleeve, A Study of Belief | Kirk Ludwig & Gene Witmer | Visiting Assistant Professor, College of William & Mary |
2009 | David Tostenson, The Connection Principle: An Exegesis and Defense | John Biro | Associate Professor, Fort Hays State University |
2008 | Bill Butchard, Grounding Explanations: The Role of ‘In Virtue of’ in Philosophical Inquiry | Gene Witmer | Visiting Assistant Professor: University of Central Florida |
2008 | Catherine Campbell, Identity, Persons, and Political Theory: A Defense of John Rawls | David Copp | Assistant Professor, Family Youth & Community Sciences at the University of Florida |
2007 | Emil Badici, The Inexpressibility of Truth | Greg Ray | Associate Professor, Texas A&M at Kingsville |
2007 | Shin Sakuragi, On Propositional Memory | Kirk Ludwig | Assistant Professor, Shibaura Institute of Technology |
2006 | Anton Tupa, Development and Defense of a Desire-Satisfaction Conception of Well-Being | David Copp | Visiting Assistant Professor, Saginaw Valley State University |
2005 | Huiming Ren, Self-Knowledge and Narrow Content | Kirk Ludwig | Professor, Shandong University |
2005 | Peter Barry, Wanting the Bad and Doing Bad Things: An Essay in Moral Psychology | David Copp | Professor, Saginaw Valley State University |
2005 | Kathryn Lammens, Defense of Conceptual Analysis and Thought Experiments | Kirk Ludwig & Gene Witmer | Visiting Assistant Professor, James Madison University |
2004 | Ellen Maccarone, Impartiality: Its Nature and Application | Robert Baum | Associate Professor, Gonzaga University |
2003 | Matthew Hallgarth, Bernard Gert’s Theory of Moral Rules and American Professional Military Ethics | Robert Baum | Associate Professor, Tarleton State University |
2003 | Daniel Boisvert, Expressive-Assertivism: A Dual-Use Solution to the Moral Problem | Kirk Ludwig | Senior Lecturer, University of North Carolina – Charlotte |
2002 | Carlos Garcia-Duque, Four Central Issues in Popper’s Theory of Science | Chuang Liu | Professor, Universidad de Caldas and Universidad de Manizales |
2001 | Eva Kort, Substance, Sorts, and Consciousness : Locke’s Empiricism and his Account of Personal Identity in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding | Kirk Ludwig | Lecturer, Coastal Carolina University |
2000 | John Peoples, A New Theory of Counterfactual Conditionals | Kirk Ludwig & Greg Ray | Lecturer, Open University |
*The economic recession prompted the university in 2008 to suspend admissions to a number of doctoral degree programs, including that in philosophy. Admissions to the philosophy doctoral program were reopened in 2018. This accounts for the lack of PhDs produced during much of the 2010s.