College of Arts & Sciences
Placement Record
A Note Concerning Job Prospects in Philosophy
Individuals applying to do graduate work in philosophy who hope to become professors of philosophy need to be aware that there are currently many more candidates for tenure-track philosophy positions than there are positions available. The American Philosophical Association reports that there are over twice as many candidates as jobs and that over half the jobs are not tenure-track. Those considering Ph.D. programs should ask the departments to which they apply detailed questions about their job-placement records. In particular, they should ask how many graduates received offers for tenure-track positions.
Placement Record
Thomas Nadelhoffer, Georgia State M.A. 1999, is a professor at Dickinson College.
Sanjay Lal, Georgia State M.A. 1999, has received a tenure-track offer to teach philosophy and applied ethics at Minnesota State Community and Technical College in Moorehead, MN.
The department actively assists its graduates in their search for either employment or further education. Many of our students seek to go on to the Ph.D. and many seek the M.A. to forward their careers. Because those going on to the Ph.D. have requested very detailed information, the department has collected data on everyone who has received the M.A. since 1995.
Ph.D. Placement of All Students Awarded the M.A., 1999-Present
Note: 2010 data is incomplete
| Year | Title | Applied to Ph.D. Programs? Yes/No (Field if Yes) |
Comments (all Ph.D. program admissions are with aid unless otherwise noted) |
| 2010 | Literature and the Moral Imagination | Yes (philosophy) | Attending Monash University |
| Year | Title | Applied to Ph.D. Programs? Yes/No (Field if Yes) |
Comments (all Ph.D. program admissions are with aid unless otherwise noted) |
| 2009 | Motivating Emotional Content | Yes (philosophy) | Attending University of California-San Diego. Also accepted into Brown University, University of Maryland, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Ohio State, University of British Columbia, University of Miami, and University of Alberta |
| 2009 | Raz and His Critics: Defending Razian Authority | Yes (philosophy) | Attending University of Virginia. Also accepted into University of Minnesota, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and University of Missouri |
| 2009 | Teleosemantics, Externalism, and the Content of Theoretical Concepts | Yes (philosophy) | Attending University of California-San Diego. Also accepted into University of Maryland and University of British Columbia |
| 2009 | The Ethical Significance of Plato's Afterlife Myths | Yes (philosophy) | Attending University of Pennsylvania |
| 2009 | Kantian Conceptualism and Apperception | Yes (philosophy) | Attending Ohio State. Also accepted into University of Illinois-Chicago and Missouri (wait-list for funding) |
| 2009 | Personal Responsibility and Drug Addiction | Yes (philosophy) | Attending University of Missouri |
| 2009 | Defending Noe's Enactive Theory of Perception | Yes (psychology) | Attending University of Kansas. Also accepted into York University |
| 2009 | The Moral Reality of War: Defensive Force and Just War Theory | No | Philosophy Instructor, in the Department of English, USMA at West Point |
| 2009 | The Proper Metric of Justice in Justice as Fairness | No | Attending GSU Law School |
| 2009 | An Incompatibility between Intentionalism and Multiple Authorship in Film | No | Attending law school |
| 2009 | Epicurean Friendship: Are Friends Really Pleasurable? | No | Attending high school teaching certification program |
| Year | Title | Applied to Ph.D. Programs? Yes/No (Field if Yes) |
Comments (all Ph.D. program admissions are with aid unless otherwise noted) |
| 2008 | Sextus was no Eudaimonist | Yes (philosophy) | Attending University of Texas at Austin. Also accepted into University of Colorado at Boulder, Washington University at St. Louis, Northwestern, and Emory. |
| 2008 | Retribution Requires Rehabilitation | Yes (philosophy) | Attending Rice. Also accepted into University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. |
| 2008 | The Concept "Woman": Feminism after the Essentialism Critique | Yes (philosophy) | Attending University of Western Ontario. Also accepted into Utah. |
| 2008 | The Non-Moral Basis of Cognitive Biases of Moral Intuitions | Yes (neuroscience) | Attending University of Iowa. |
| 2008 | Freedom and Forfeiture: Responding to Galen Strawson's Basic Argument | Yes (philosophy) | Attending Florida State University. |
| 2008 | Kim's Pairing Problem and the Viability of Substance Dualism | Yes (philosophy) | Attending St. Louis University |
| 2008 | Freedom and the Ideal Republican State | Yes (philosophy) | Accepted into University of South Carolina and University of Kentucky |
| 2008 | Aristotelian Liberal Virtues | No | Residence Hall Director at Georgia Tech |
| 2008 | The Aesthetic Idea and the Unity of Cognitive Faculties in Kant's Aesthetics | No | Instructor of Philosophy at Clayton State |
| 2008 | Facing the Problems of Feminism: Working Toward Resolution | No | Teaching high school. |
| 2008 | Is Core Affect a Natural Kind? | No | Teaching at Georgia State as a Visiting Instructor |
| 2008 | Against Pyrrhonian Equipollence | No | |
| 2008 | Child Abuse, Racism and the State | No | |
| 2008 | A Description of the Natural Place of Magic in Philosophy and Religious Studies | No | |
| 2008 | A Comparative Study of the Ethics of Christine M. Korsgaard and Jean-Paul Sarte | No | |
| Year | Title | Applied to Ph.D. Programs? Yes/No (Field if Yes) |
Comments (all Ph.D. program admissions are with aid unless otherwise noted) |
| 2007 | Hard Compatibilism and the Varieties of Manipulation | Yes (philosophy) | Attending University of California - Riverside; also accepted into Florida State and Rochester. |
| 2007 | Under Pressure from the Empirical Data: Does Externalism Rest on a Mistaken Psychological Theory? | Yes (philosophy) | Attending Johns Hopkins; also accepted into University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Washington University PNP program, University of South Florida, and University of Western Ontario. |
| 2007 | Naturalism and Moral Realism | Yes (philosophy) | Attending University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Also accepted into Florida State, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Bowling Green State University, and Georgetown University (aid wait-list). |
| 2007 | Eudaimonistic Agent-Relativity and Moore's Criticisms of Naturalism | Yes (philosophy) | Attending Bowling Green State University. |
| 2007 | Neuroeconomics and the Rationality Debate | Yes (psychology with philosophy minor) | Attending the University of Arizona. |
| 2007 | Resting in the Court of Reason: Kant's Resolution to the Antinomy of Pure Reason | Yes (religion) | Attending Emory; also accepted into Boston University. |
| 2007 | Father Knows Best: A Critique of Joel Feinberg's Soft Paternalism | No | Teaching high school |
| 2007 | In Defense of Rawlsian Constructivism | Yes | Attending University of Memphis |
| 2007 | Perspectives on Perspectivism: Nietzsche and His Commentators | No | Teaching as a Visiting Instructor at Georgia State. |
| 2007 | Irony, Finitude and the Good Life: A Reading of Plato’s Symposium | No | |
| 2007 | Defending Lucretius’Symmetry Argument against the Fear of Death | No | Working in Human Resources for the IBM China Beijing Office. |
| 2007 | Contextualist Responses to Skepticism | No | Project manager in Washington D.C. |
| 2007 | Nietzsche on Naturalism, Egoism, and Altruism | No | Working on an MA in Counseling Psychology and teaching philosophy part time |
| 2007 | Between Being and Nothingness: the Metaphysical Foundations Underlying Augustine’s Solution to the Problem of Evil | No | Working at Georgia State's library as the subject specialist and liaison for Philosophy, Religious Studies and Middle East Insititute |
| Year | Title | Applied to Ph.D. Programs? Yes/No (Field if Yes) |
Comments |
| 2006 | Rawls' Cosmopolitan Law of Peoples? The Place of Persons in a Peoples' World | Yes (philosophy) | Attending Brown University; also accepted to University of Pennsylvania and elsewhere. |
| 2006 | Wittgenstein and Religion | Yes (philosophy) | Attending Claremont Graduate University |
| 2006 | A Defense of Moral Realism | Yes (health care ethics) | Attending Saint Louis University |
| 2006 | Nietzsche on the Future and Value | Yes (philosophy) | Accepted to the University of South Florida and Marquette University, but declined offers |
| 2006 | The Impossibility of Evil Qua Evil: Kantian Limitations on Human Immorality | Yes (philosophy) | Attending the University of Illinois - Chicago; also accepted into Emory and the University of Washington. |
| 2006 | Liberalism and the Worst-Result Principle: Preventing Tyranny, Protecting Civil Liberty | Yes (philosophy) | Attending Boston University, also accepted to Washington University |
| 2006 | A Defense of Soft Positivism: Justice and Principle Processes | No | Attending George Washington University Law School to obtain a Master's of Law (LLM) in International and Comparative Law |
| 2006 | Bonjour's Positions on Justification: From Coherentism to Foundationalism | No | |
| 2006 | Rossian Moral Pluralism: A (Partial) Defense | No | Attending Law School, Catholic University of America |
| 2006 | Marriage as Unconstitutional: How Not Allowing Homosexual Marriage Violates the First Amendment | Yes (philosophy) | Attending Vanderbilt |
| 2006 | The Female Voices of Islam | No | Working for a non-profit agency for human rights advocacy |
| 2006 | On the Stepehen Macedo and John Finnis Exchange: Natural Law, Liberalism, and Homosexuality | No | Teaching high school |
| Year | Title | Applied to Ph.D. Programs? Yes/No (Field if Yes) |
Comments |
| 2005 | Ways to skin the zombie-cat: a look at the problems associated with Chalmers's zombie-argument | Yes (philosophy) | Attending University of Washington |
| 2005 | A defense of the principle of alternative possibilities and a critique of Humean compatibilism | Yes (philosophy) | Attending University of California, Riverside |
| 2005 | The role of self-interest in Aristotle's moral theory | Yes (philosophy) | Attending Rice University |
| 2005 | Defining the human being: personhood as a first principle of human teleology in Wojtyla's Aristotelian-Thomistic anthropology | Yes (theology) | Attending Ave Maria University |
| 2005 | Scepticism and contextualism | No | |
| 2005 | Teaching Creation Science in public schools: an examination of the creation/evolution controversy | No | Currently a critical thinking instructor at Clayton State University |
| Year | Title | Applied to Ph.D. Programs? Yes/No (Field if Yes) |
Comments |
| 2004 | The "Unfolding" of Everlasting Torment in Hell? Assessing the Role of Outside Influence and Interpretive Assumptions in the Formation of the Traditional and Annihilationist Christian Views of Hell | No | Pursuing a graduate degree in Library Sciences in the Alabama state university system. |
| 2004 | The Ideology of Freedom: An Immanent Critique of the Latent Theory of Human Nature in the Frankfurt School | No | Attending Emory Law School |
| 2004 | Violent Benevolence: An Ethical Assessment of Humanitarian Military Intervention | No | Attending the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Boston for MA |
| 2004 | Willing the Overman: An Analysis of Friedrich Nietzsche's Will to Power, Eternal Recurrence, and Overman | No | |
| 2004 | Shadows of Things to Come: The Theological Implications of Intelligent Life on Other Worlds | Yes | Currently an instructor in Philosophy at Georgia Perimeter College and working to complete an MA in English at Georgia State |
| 2004 | Reassessing Feinberg's View of Abortion | Yes | Accepted into the PhD program in Philosophy at Purdue University and the PhD in Religious and Theological Studies Joint Ph.D. Program at the University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology, but has declined these offers and elected to pursue a degree in law |
| 2004 | The Deontological Conception of Justification | Yes | Attending the University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| 2004 | Anti-Reductionism and Reversibility in Merleau-Ponty's Rejection of Dualism | Yes | Applying to PhD program in Shanghai, acceptance and matriculation status unknown |
| 2004 | "Who Does Karma For This Body?" Death and Dying in Hindu Communities in Metropolitan Atlanta | No | Working at departments of philosophy and religious studies |
| Year | Title | Applied to Ph.D. Programs? Yes/No (Field if Yes) |
Comments |
| 2003 | Passionate Entanglements, Desire, Fear, and Perception of Coercive Power | Yes (Philosophy) | Attending Emory University |
| 2003 | Goldman’s Reliabilist Theory of Epistemic Justification: Is It Viable? | Yes | Attending St. Louis University |
| 2003 | Nothingness and the Possibility of Responsible Choice in Jean-Paul Sartre's Phenomenological Ontology | Yes (Philosophy) | Attending Duquesne University |
| 2003 | A Wittgensteinian Resolution of the Debtor's Paradox | No | Has since taught as an instructor in Philosophy at Georgia State |
| 2003 | The Problem of Induction: A Critical Review of Recent Proposals | No | |
| 2003 | Evil and the Human Experience | No | Now teaches religion and philosophy courses at a community college in Florida |
| 2003 | Do I Know What I Know?: Knowledge in Moral and Scientific Epistemology | No | Has since taught as an instructor in Philosophy at Georgia State |
| 2003 | Bell’s Theorem and the Metaphysical Implications of Quantum Physics | No | |
| 2003 | Data Monitoring in Clinical Trials and the Ethics of Human Experimentation | No | |
| 2003 | On the Law of Peoples and Its Aims: Machiavelli Writ Large? | No | Attending Georgia State Law School |
| 2003 | Authenticity as Idiosyncratic Interpretive Comportment | No | Currently enrolled in a program in advertising in Milan, Italy |
| Year | Title | Applied to Ph.D. Programs? Yes/No (Field if Yes) |
Comments |
| 2002 | A Pragmatic Meta-Ethics for Environmental Ethics | Yes (Philosophy) | Attending the University of Washington |
| 2002 | What is Good-Sense Pragmatism? | No | |
| 2002 | Environmental Aesthetics and the Protection of the Perceptual Resource | No | |
| 2002 | Tolstoy on Art | Yes (Philosophy) | Attending Emory |
| 2002 | A Moral Defense of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research | Yes (Philosophy) | Accepted at University of Utah |
| 2002 | Genealogy and Rhetoric | No | |
| 2002 | Against Coincident Entities | Yes (Philosophy) | Attending CUNY Graduate Center |
| Year | Title | Applied to Ph.D. Programs? Yes/No (Field if Yes) |
Comments |
| 2001 | Emotion as Action and Transformation: A View of Emotion Through the Thought of Sartre and Gordon | No | |
| 2001 | The Question of Human Cloning: Are We Thinking It Through | No | |
| 2001 | Voluntariness with a Vengeance: Miranda and a Modern Alternative | No | |
| 2001 | The Ethics of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research | Yes (History) | Attending Georgia State University |
| 2001 | The Philosophy of Henry Suso: A Modern Appraisal | No | |
| 2001 | Pluralism, Religious Freedom, and Fringe Religions in a Liberal Society | Yes (Philosophy) | Attending Washington University; also accepted at University of Virginia |
| 2001 | Reliability Theories of Justification and the Notion of Warrant | Yes (Philosophy) | Attending UC-Santa Barbara. |
| Year | Title | Applied to Ph.D. Programs? Yes/No (Field if Yes) |
Comments |
| 2000 | A Common Misunderstanding Regarding Criteria and Knowledge of the Sensations of Others in Wittgenstein's Philosophy | Yes (Architecture) | Studying architecture at New Jersey Institute of Technology (support status unknown) |
| 2000 | A Prolegomena to Information Ethics | No | |
| 2000 | The Ethical Analysis of Advanced Care Planning in Georgia | No | |
| 2000 | Degrees of Terrorism: An Applied Examination of Terrorism as a Mean to Political Ends | No | |
| 2000 | What Is Wrong With Indeterminate Identity? | Yes (Philosophy) | Attending U Mass-Amherst |
| 2000 | Wittgenstein on Grammar and Essence | Yes (Philosophy) | Attending University of Reading (in the UK) |
| 2000 | Nelson Goodman's Theory of Representation | No | |
| Year | Title | Applied to Ph.D. Programs? Yes/No (Field if Yes) |
Comments |
| 1999 | The Intended Audience of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics | Yes (Philosophy) | Attending University of Georgia |
| 1999 | A Critique of Chalmers' Theory of Naturalistic Dualism and the Objections Stemming From Epiphenomenalism | No | |
| 1999 | David Chalmers and the Hard Problem of Consciousness: Criticism from Type-B Materialism | No | |
| 1999 | Mental Physical Logical Supervenience: Ontological Definitions and Analysis of Concepts | No | |
| 1999 | Aristotle's Method: Fact or Belief | Yes (Philosophy) | Attending University of Calfornia, Davis |
| 1999 | Non-Relativist Perspectives and Abortion Disagreements: Considering the Ideas of Bambrough and Stout | Yes (Philosophy) | Attending University of Tennessee |
| 1999 | Without Prejudice: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Socrates' "What is F?" Question | Yes (Philosophy) | Attended Florida State University; currently a tenure-track faculty member at Dickinson College. |
| 1999 | Toward A Conception of Moral Agency Based on Unconditional Love, Compassion and Altruism | No |
Other Careers
Many students who have received the M.A. in philosophy at Georgia State have elected not to pursue a Ph.D. These students have gone on to use their philosophical skills as community college instructo, high school teacher, ethics consultant, army officer, and artist. Many have gone to careers in different sorts of business settings.
More Information
Contact Dr. Tim O'Keefe, Director of Graduate Studies.
philgrad (at) gsu (dot) edu
Department of Philosophy
Georgia State University
P.O. Box 4089
Atlanta, Georgia 30302-4089
Phone: (404) 413-6108