PhD in Philosophy

The main goal of the program is educating young scholars in order to undertake an academic career, both in national and international research institutions and research centers; a secondary goal is work placement in multidisciplinary professional fields that require philosophical competence.

The following goals are among the Ph.D. program main objectives:

• the acquisition of competences shared by the philosophical understanding of the human experience and the study of natural and social sciences;
• the mastering of the different languages in which the investigation on the notion of personhood has been developed in Western cultures and is carried out in the main areas of research on human beings;
• learning the most advanced methods of investigation in conceptual analysis, historical-theoretical research, rational argumentation, experimental study of cognitive functions;
• the development of a synthetic perspective on philosophical subject matters – human mind, language, values, behavior, personal life – which unifies historical and philosophical comprehension and the results of empirical science;
• the development of a clear and effective scientific writing ability that allows the production of original and fully developed research contributions in specific disciplinary domains;
• the ability to be critically and creatively involved in the process of knowledge, coordination and management of research groups and complex organizations.

These goals are concretely implemented in each area of expertise, in which the Ph.D. program is particularly interested – theoretical philosophy and aesthetics, ethics and politics, history of ideas, and epistemology and the philosophy of mind and language – in which more specific competences will be developed through a multidisciplinary analysis of the contents and the methodologies of each research field.

The research that each Ph.D. student will carry out shall not be a blurred mixture of methodologies and contents, rather an enrichment and integration of a main line of investigation with other aspects compatible with her/his research topic, so that what would be overshadowed by a unilateral approach can come to light.

To this aim, each Ph.D. student will be able not only to conceive and construe her/his own line of research, by being guided by a supervisor and a tutor, but will also attend a training program structured into specific seminars and the participation in the activities of the research centers.

Each Ph.D. student will have the chance to acquire a unitary view and be equipped with a large variety of practical and conceptual research tools, which are often otherwise confined within single academic disciplines. To this extent, such a multifaceted approach finds a rather natural research environment in University Vita-Salute San Raffaele; the Ph.D. program will also benefit from the collaboration with the interdisciplinary research centers of the Philosophy Faculty and the research centers of the University.