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Department of Philosophy

Research environment

Our research

Postgraduate study in our department takes places against the backdrop of four distinguished research centres. The department has research strength in all of the major areas of philosophy, and is nationally and internationally recognised for these particular clusters of research activity:

  • Philosophy of Mind & Psychology
  • Epistemology
  • The Philosophy of Art and Literature
  • Moral and Political Philosophy
  • 20th Century Continental Philosophy
  • Kant and 19th Century Post-Kantian Philosophy

Each of our research centres provide a range of study and research opportunities for postgraduate students, from major international conferences, workshops, visits from distinguished external speakers, reading groups, to a number of annual international graduate conferences. The strength of our research was acknowledged in REF 2014, in which we were ranked 4th overall for Philosophy, and 1st on the quality of published research.

As a postgraduate student, you will be part of a large and active graduate community. This graduate community plays an important part in shaping the research environment, and the research profile, of our department. We are home to MindGrad, the world’s leading graduate conference in the philosophy of mind, and in conjunction with the Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS), we host the Warwick Graduate Conference in Political and Legal Theory - one of the world’s outstanding graduate conferences in political philosophy.

We believe that one of the most important parts of being a member of a graduate community, and of your development as a philosopher, is discussing your work with your peers. There is a fortnightly work-in-progress seminar for research students, at which all taught postgraduate students are welcome. Building on the success of this seminar, there is now a dedicated student-led work in progress seminar for taught postgraduate students. We encourage all of our taught postgraduate students to take up the opportunities provided by the rich and varied research life of the department.