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Philosophy

The goal of the Philosophy Department is to work with students to develop the skills of critical analysis, powerful speaking, and clear writing, skills alumni find of singular practical use in a wide variety of careers, and indispensable to their work as responsible citizens. We emphasize the value of philosophical examination for understanding broad issues that concern us all.

About the Major

At Hamilton, philosophy professors encourage students to engage actively in classes. Our small introductory classes focus on primary sources rather than predigested material in textbooks. All courses invite students to participate in collaborative conversations, with emphases on developing clear writing and presentation skills. Philosophy majors apply their training beyond the classroom through experiential learning projects or by participating in our exciting summer program. Visiting speakers bring some of the most prominent names in philosophy to campus and into our classrooms.

Students Will Learn To:

  • Explain a range of philosophical views, historical and contemporary
  • Identify philosophical problems in philosophy, other academic disciplines, or outside the academy
  • Formulate their own views about philosophical problems in conversation with other philosophical works
  • Defend those views cogently in writing and in speech

A Sampling of Courses

Truax Pillars

Environmental Ethics

Examines the appropriate relation of humans to the environment. Specific topics include ways of conceptualizing nature; the ethical and social sources of the environmental crisis; our moral duties to non-human organisms; and the ethical dimensions of the human population explosion. The goal is to help students arrive at their own reasoned views on these subjects and to think about the consequences of everyday actions, both personal and political. Preference given to environmental studies majors and minors, starting with seniors.

Explore these select courses:

How ought we to live our lives? How ought we to treat other people? What features of an action make it right or wrong? What are the character traits make a person good or bad? We will examine three major traditions in ethical theory: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. And we will discuss some applied questions concerning the morality of abortion, affluence and poverty, war, pornography, climate change, and the treatment of non-human animals. We will explore questions of moral motivation. We will read primary texts.

What is a self? Does each person have one? Does each person have only one? How is the self related to the soul? Is it unchanging or in constant flux? What is the relationship between the self and the body? Examination of personal identity, the self and the soul as these topics are addressed in traditional philosophical texts, literature and the natural and behavioral sciences.

A study of justice within the history of ethical theory, including developments and debates among Humean, consequentialist, and deontological perspectives. We pay special attention to aid (when are we required to help others in need?) and distributive justice (what constitutes a fair distribution of goods and resources?), discussing theories from Dworkin, Rawls, Sen, and Nussbaum. The course concludes with a unit on the capabilities approach to distributive justice, which introduces basic questions about the requirements for living a good and happy human life.

It makes sense to see morality as adaptive, yet from an evolutionary perspective it’s puzzling that we follow and enforce moral standards even when it is costly for us to do so. This course will critically examine different sorts of evolutionary accounts of morality (e.g. group selection, cultural evolution), with methodological issues in mind.
All Courses Requirements

Meet Our Faculty

Alexandra Plakias

Chair, Associate Professor of Philosophy

aaplakia@hamilton.edu

moral psychology, metaethics, and social epistemology

Jaime Castillo-Gamboa

Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy

jcastill@hamilton.edu

Metaphysics, philosophy of language

Justin Clark

Associate Professor of Philosophy

jcclark@hamilton.edu

ethics, ancient philosophy, social and political philosophy

A. Todd Franklin

Eugene M. Tobin Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Africana Studies

tfrankli@hamilton.edu

existentialism, African-American philosophy, and Nietzsche

Marianne Janack

John Stewart Kennedy Professor of Philosophy

mjanack@hamilton.edu

epistemology; philosophy of science; philosophy of mind; theories of identity; feminist theory; philosophy and literature; American pragmatism

Russell Marcus

Christian A. Johnson Excellence in Teaching Professor of Philosophy

rmarcus1@hamilton.edu

philosophy of mathematics, logic, modern philosophy, and pedagogy

Phyllis Pearson

Assistant Professor of Philosophy

ppearson@hamilton.edu

Epistemology, ethics, aesthetics

Michael Veldman

Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy

mveldman@hamilton.edu

History and philosophy of science, early modern philosophy, philosophy of climate change, philosophy of mind, philosophy of mathematics, logic

Faces & Spaces

Hamilton College Summer Program in Philosophy
The annual two-week Hamilton College Summer Program in Philosophy (HCSPiP) is designed to explore new ways to teach and learn undergraduate philosophy. Students enrolled in the 2022 program took three classes including Philosophy and Comedy, which included an improv workshop with The Second City, the world’s premier comedy club.

Hamilton College Summer Program in Philosophy

Members of the Philosophy for Children program
Riley Nichols ’21 developed a program titled “Philosophy with Children” with 12 other students under the direction of John Stewart Kennedy Chair of Philosophy Marianne Janack. The group developed and delivered virtual weekly lessons exploring age-appropriate topics in philosophy with groups of Clinton elementary and middle school students. Some of the lesson plans developed by the Hamilton students have been selected and published by PLATO (Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization).

Careers After Hamilton

Hamilton graduates who concentrated in philosophy are pursuing careers in a variety of fields, including:

  • Writer, Simon & Schuster
  • Psychiatrist, SW Connecticut Mental Health
  • Director & Counsel, Credit Suisse Securities
  • U.S. Ambassador, Federal Republic of Germany
  • Professor of Psychiatry, Case Western Reserve University
  •  Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Virginia Tech
  • Senior Scientist, GE Global Research
  • Director, U.S. Department of Transportation
  • Vice President, Goldman Sachs
  • Officer, U.S. Marine Corps
  • Principal Law Clerk, New York State Supreme Court
  • Lieutenant, U.S. Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Explore Hamilton Stories

2025 Fulbright English Teaching Assistantships map illustration

Three Class of ’25 Grads Receive Fulbright ETAs

Three jet-setting members of the class of ’25 are packing their bags and heading to new countries through the prestigious Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) awards. They will return to study abroad favorites, embrace new cultures, and serve as bridges between the U.S. and the world. In addition, Jason Le ’23 is the recipient of an ETA Award to Vietnam.

Marianne Janack

Janack Co-Edits Collection About Pragmatism, Philosophy of Science

John Stewart Kennedy Professor of Philosophy Marianne Janack co-edited the collection, Pragmatism and Philosophy of Science: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives, recently published by Routledge

Contact

Department Name

Philosophy Department

Contact Name

Alex Plakias, Chair

Office Location
198 College Hill Road
Clinton, NY 13323
Phone
315-859-4920

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