Publications

Work in progress.

The central task of the book is that of articulating coherent versions of modal counterpart theory and temporal counterpart theory , which avoid certain internal problems which beset existing formulations of these ideas. The result is, in the modal case, a view according to which all contingency is de re contingency , and in the temporal case, one according to which all change is de re change . New light is shed on the role of temporal counterpart theory vis-à-vis the central debate between ‘A-theorists’ and ‘B-theorists’ in the philosophy of time, and on the role of modal counterpart theory vis-à-vis the analogous debate in the philosophy of modality. What emerges is that temporal counterpart theory is really a form of A-theory, although it is unlike better-known forms of A-theory in being completely consistent with an account of fundamental metaphysics based on spacetime physics.

This book grew out of an unpublished paper, ‘How to Be a Modal Realist’ .

A book on the metaphysics of quantum mechanics.

Some of the main ideas are sketched in the following (rather old) paper

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.

In general, a given object could have been different in certain respects. For example, the Great Pyramid could have been somewhat shorter or taller; the Mona Lisa could have had a somewhat different pattern of colours; an ordinary table could have been made of a somewhat different quantity of wood. But there seem to be limits. It would be odd to suppose that the Great Pyramid could have been thimble-sized; that the Mona Lisa could have had the pattern of colours that actually characterizes The Scream; or that the table could have been made of the very quantity of wood that in fact made some other table. However, there are puzzling arguments that purport to show that so long as an object is capable of being somewhat different in some respect, it is capable of being radically different in that respect. These arguments rely on two tempting thoughts: first, that an object’s capacity for moderate variation is a non-contingent matter, and second, that what is possibly possible is simply possible. This book systematically investigates competing strategies for resolving these puzzles, and defends one of them. Along the way it engages with foundational questions about the metaphysics of modality

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Sample chapter

Forthcoming in Mind .

In a recent paper , Yoaav Isaacs, Alan Hájek, and John Hawthorne argue for the rational permissibility of ‘credal imprecision’ by appealing to certain propositions associated with non-measurable spatial regions: for example, the proposition that the pointer of a spinner will come to rest within a certain non-measurable set of points on its circumference. This paper rebuts their argument by showing that its premisses lead to implausible consequences in cases where one is trying to learn, by making multiple observations, whether a certain outcome is associated with a non-measurable region or a measurable one.

Published version Draft

Philosophical Perspectives 35 (2021): 70–98.

We defend three controversial claims about preference, credence, and choice. First, all agents (not just rational ones) have complete preferences. Second, all agents (again, not just rational ones) have real-valued credences in every proposition in which they are confident to any degree. Third, there is almost always some unique thing we ought to do, want, or believe.

Published version Penultimate draft

Noûs 57.2 (2023): 414–53.

We argue that all comparative expressions in natural language obey a principle that we call Comparability: if x and y are at least as F as themselves, then either x is at least as F as y or y is at least as F as x . This principle has been widely rejected among philosophers, especially by ethicists, and its falsity has been claimed to have important normative implications. We argue that Comparability is needed to explain the goodness of several patterns of inference that seem manifestly valid, that the purported failures of Comparability would have absurd consequences, and that the influential arguments against Comparability are less compelling than they may have initially seemed.

Mind 130.520 (2021): 1159–82.

David Builes presents a paradox concerning how confident you should be that any given member of an infinite collection of fair coins landed heads, conditional on the information that they were all flipped and only finitely many of them landed heads. We argue that if you should have any conditional credence at all, it should be 1/2.

Noûs 54.3 (2020): 632–65.

We defend the thesis that every necessarily true proposition is always true. Since not every proposition that is always true is necessarily true, our thesis is at odds with theories of modality and time, such as those of David Kaplan and Kit Fine, which posit a fundamental symmetry between modal and tense operators. According to such theories, just as it is a contingent matter what is true at a given time, it is likewise a temporary matter what is true at a given possible world; so a proposition that is now true at all worlds, and thus necessarily true, may yet at some past or future time be false in the actual world, and thus not always true. We reconstruct and criticise several lines of argument in favour of such a picture, and argue against it on the grounds that such a picture is inconsistent with certain sorts of contingency in the structure of time.

Philosophical Perspectives 30 (2016): 39--134.

This paper is an investigation of the general logic of "identifications", claims such as 'To be a vixen is to be a female fox', 'To be human is to be a rational animal', and 'To be just is to help one's friends and harm one's enemies', many of which are of great importance to philosophers. I advocate understanding such claims as expressing higher-order identity, and discuss a variety of different general laws which they might be thought to obey.

Philosophical Review 125 (2016): 241–86.

This paper considers how counterfactuals should be evaluated on the assumption that determinism is true. I argue against Lewis's influential view that then the actual laws of nature would have been false if something had happened that never actually happened, and in favour of the competing view that history would have been different all the way back. I argue that we can do adequate justice to our ordinary practice of relying on a wide range of historical truths in evaluating counterfactuals by saying that, in typical cases, history would have been only very slightly different until shortly before the relevant time. The paper also draws some connections between the puzzle about counterfactuals under determinism and the debate about whether determinism is consistent with people having unexercised abilities.

Review of Symbolic Logic 8 (2015): 1–10.

Timothy Williamson has shown that the B axiom for 'definitely' (α → Δ¬Δ¬α) guarantees that if a sentence is second-order vague in a Kripke model, it is nth order vague for every n. More recently, Anna Mahtani has argued that Williamson's epistemicist theory of vagueness does not support the B axiom, and conjectured that if we consider models in which the “radius of accessibility” varies between different points, we will be able to find sentences that are nth-order vague but (n+1)th-order precise, for any n. This paper bolsters Mahtani's argument, shows her conjecture to be true, and shows that imposing certain further natural constraints on "variable radius" models does not change the situation.

Published version Penultimate version

The Monist 97 (2014): 503-70.

Quantifier variantists hold that certain relatively minor differences in use, involving differences in our dispositions with respect to certain "ontological" questions, would affect the meanings of the quantifiers in such a way that whichever answers to those questions we were disposed to accept would be true in our mouths. In his 1980 paper 'What's So Logical About the "Logical" Axioms', J. H. Harris proved some theorems which have been widely taken to support the claim that the meanings of all logical constants, including the quantifiers, are uniquely pinned down by certain very general and counterfactually robust facts about how we use them. This paper attempts to get clear on the assumptions required to get from the relevant theorems to this claim of semantic stability, with a view to seeing whether the theorems provide the basis for a non-question-begging argument against quantifier variantism.

Philosophical Review 123 (2014): 281-338.

Most of the meanings we express belong to large families of variant meanings, among which it would be implausible to suppose that some are much more apt for being expressed than others. This abundance of candidate meanings creates pressure to think that the proposition attributing any particular meaning to an expression is modally plastic: its truth depends very sensitively on the exact microphysical state of the world. However, such plasticity seems to threaten ordinary counterfactuals whose consequents contain speech reports, since it is hard to see how we could reasonably be confident in a counterfactual whose consequent can only be true if a certain very finely-tuned microphysical configuration obtains. In this paper, we develop the foregoing puzzle and explore several possible solutions. tails.

Philosophical Studies 170 (2014):277-87.

We present and discuss a counterexample to the following plausible principle: if you know that a coin is fair, and for all you know it is going to be flipped, then for all you know it will land tails.

Penultimate version Published version

Mind 122 (2013): 867–913. (Appeared May 2014)

Seth Yalcin has pointed out some puzzling facts about the behaviour of epistemic modals in certain embedded contexts. For example, conditionals that begin ‘If it is raining and it might not be raining, …’ sound unacceptable, unlike conditionals that begin ‘If it is raining and I don’t know it, …’. These facts pose a prima facie problem for an orthodox treatment of epistemic modals, according to which they express propositions about the knowledge of some contextually specified individual or group. This paper develops an explanation of the puzzling facts about embedding within an orthodox framework, using broadly Gricean resources.

In Oxford Studies in Metaphysics vol. 8 , ed. Karen Bennett and Dean Zimmerman (Oxford University Press, 2013).

Lewis's notion of a "natural" property has proved divisive: some have taken to the notion with enthusiasm, while others have been sceptical. However, it is far from obvious what the enthusiasts and the sceptics are disagreeing about. This paper attempts to articulate what is at stake in this debate.

Penultimate version

Mind 120 (2011): 939-91.

Suppose that (1) is true in a certain context: (1) Necessarily, whenever one believes that the F is uniquely F if anything is, and x is the F, one believes that x is uniquely F if anything is. I argue that almost always, (2) will be true in the same context: (2) Necessarily, whenever one knows a priori that the F is uniquely F if anything is, and x is the F, one knows a priori that x is uniquely F if anything is. I also argue that many instances of (1) and (2) are true in ordinary contexts, and conclude that a priori knowledge of contingent de re propositions is a common and unmysterious phenomenon. However, because of the pervasive context-sensitivity of propositional attitude ascriptions, the question what it is possible to know a priori of a given object will have very different answers in different contexts.

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 111 (2011): 135–59.

I explore some ways in which one might base an account of the fundamental metaphysics of geometry on the mathematical theory of ‘Linear Structures’ developed by Tim Maudlin in ‘Time, Topology and Physical Geometry’. Having considered some of the challenges facing this approach, I develop an alternative approach, according to which the fundamental ontology includes concrete entities structurally isomorphic to scalar fields.

Philosophical Perspectives 25 (2010): 189-205.

The Eternal Coin is a fair coin that has existed forever, and will exist forever, in a region causally isolated from you. It is tossed every day. How confident should you be that the Coin lands heads today, conditional on (i) the hypothesis that it has landed Heads on every past day, or (ii) the hypothesis that it will land Heads on every future day? I argue for the extremely counterintuitive claim that the correct answer to both questions is 1.

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 110 (2010): 133-181.

According to a tradition stemming from Quine and Putnam, certain theories that entail the existence of mathematical entities are better, qua explanations of our evidence, than any theories that do not, and thus we have the same broadly inductive reason for believing in numbers as we have for believing in electrons. In this paper I consider how the existence of nominalistic modal theories of the form 'Possibly, the concrete world is just as it in fact is and T ' and 'Necessarily, if standard mathematics is true and the concrete world is just as it in fact is, then T ' bears on this claim. I conclude that, while analogies with theories that attempt to eliminate unobservable concrete entities provide good reason to regard theories of the former kind as explanatorily bad, this reason does not apply to theories of the latter kind, which are not relevantly analogous to anything available to eliminativists about electrons.

Analysis 65 (2005): 210-18.

I argue that there is a conflict between two positions defended by David Lewis: counterpart theory, and the identification of propositions with sets of possible worlds. There is no adequate answer to the question whether a world where Humphrey has one winning and one losing counterpart is or is not a member of the set that is the proposition that Humphrey wins. If one says it is, it will follow that it is possible for that proposition to be true without Humphrey winning; if one says that it is not, it will follow that it is possible for Humphrey to win without that proposition being true.

Published version Preprint

In Oxford Studies in Metaphysics , vol. 1 , ed. Dean Zimmerman (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 2004): 155-192.

Presupposing that most predicates do not correspond directly to genuine relations, I argue that all genuine relations are symmetric. My main argument depends on the premise that there are no brute necessities, interpreted so as to require logical and metaphysical necessity to coincide for sentences composed entirely of logical vocabulary and primitive predicates. Given this premise, any set of purportedly primitive predicates by which one might hope to express the facts about non-symmetric relations order their relata will generate an objectionable multiplication of possibilities. In the final section I give a different argument, based on the weaker premise that brute necessities should not be multiplied without necessity.

Google Books Penultimate version

In Philosophical Perspectives 17: Language and Philosophical Linguistics , ed. John Hawthorne and Dean Zimmerman , Blackwell, 2003: 83-114.

I motivate and briefly sketch a linguistic theory of vagueness, on which the notion of indeterminacy is understood in terms of the conventions of language: a sentence is indeterminate iff the conventions of language either forbid asserting it and forbid asserting its negation, under the circumstances, or permit asserting either. I then consider an objection that purports to show that if this theory (or, as far as I can see, any other theory of vagueness that deserved the label “linguistic”) were true, there would be no such thing as indeterminacy. I respond to this objection by arguing on independent grounds against its main premise, the widely-accepted claim that if it is indeterminate whether P , no human being knows whether P . I defend an alternative view according to which, when it is indeterminate whether P , it is often also indeterminate whether we know that P .

Analysis 62 (2002): 292-295.

I argue for the “thirder” solution to the Sleeping Beauty puzzle. The argument turns on an analogy with a variant case, in which a coin-toss on Monday night determines whether one's memories of Monday are permanently erased, or merely suspended in such a way that they will return some time after one wakes up on Tuesday.

Published version Analysis

Noûs 36 (2002): 97-103.

Even if non-cognitivists about some subject-matter can meet Geach’s challenge to explain how there can be valid implications involving sentences which express non-cognitive attitudes, they face a further problem. I argue that a non-cognitivist cannot explain how, given a valid argument whose conclusion expresses a belief and at least one of whose premises expresses a non-cognitive attitude, it could be reasonable to infer the conclusion from the premises.

Published version Jstor

Book chapters

Forthcoming in Higher-Order Metaphysics , ed. Peter Fritz and Nicholas K. Jones. Oxford University Press.

We explore a theory we call ‘Classicism’, whose guiding idea is that provable coextensiveness in classical higher-order logic is sufficient for identity.

In The Philosophy of Cosmology , ed. Khalil Chamcham, John Barrow, Simon Saunders, and Joe Silk. Cambridge University Press, 2017.

We develop a Bayesian framework for thinking about the way evidence about the here and now can bear on hypotheses about the qualitative character of the world as a whole, including hypotheses according to which the total population of the world is infinite. We show how this framework makes sense of the practice cosmologists have recently adopted in their reasoning about such hypotheses.

In Empty Representations: Reference and Non-existence , ed. Manuel Garcia-Carpintero and Genoveva Martí (Oxford University Press, 2014): 25–66.

This paper defends the claim that although ‘Superman is Clark Kent and some people who believe that Superman flies do not believe that Clark Kent flies’ is a logically inconsistent sentence, we can still utter this sentence, while speaking literally, without asserting anything false. The key idea is that the context-sensitivity of attitude reports can be, and often is, resolved in different ways within a single sentence.

Chapter 8 of Frank Arntzenius, Space, Time and Stuff (Oxford University Press, 2012).

We attempt to extend the nominalistic project initiated in Hartry Field's Science Without Numbers to modern physical theories based in differential geometry.

In Cuts and Clouds: Vagueness, its Nature and its Logic , ed. Richard Dietz and Sebastiano Moruzzi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 550-575.

The conclusion of this chapter is that higher-order vagueness is universal: no sentence whatsoever is definitely true, definitely definitely true, definitely definitely definitely true, and so on ad infinitum . The argument, of which there are several versions, turns on the existence of Sorites sequences of possible worlds connecting the actual world to possible worlds where a given sentence is used in such a way that its meaning is very different. The chapter attempts to be neutral between competing accounts of the nature of vagueness and definiteness.

In Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics , ed. John Hawthorne , Theodore Sider and Dean Zimmerman . Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007.

I explicate and defend the claim that, fundamentally speaking, there are no numbers, sets, properties or relations. The clarification consists in some remarks on the relevant sense of ‘fundamentally speaking’ and the contrasting sense of ‘superficially speaking’. The defence consists in an attempt to rebut two arguments for the existence of such entities. The first is a version of the indispensability argument, which purports to show that certain mathematical entities are required for good scientific explanations. The second is a speculative reconstruction of Armstrong’s version of the One Over Many argument, which purports to show that properties and relations are required for good philosophical explanations, e.g. of what it is for one thing to be a duplicate of another.

In Fictionalism in Metaphysics , ed. Mark Kalderon . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

In this paper I attempt two things. First, I argue that one can coherently imagine different communities using languages structurally similar to English, but in which the meanings of the quantifiers vary, so that the answers to ontological questions, such as ‘Under what circumstances do some things compose something?’, are different. Second, I argue that nevertheless, one can make sense of the idea that of the various possible assignments of meanings to the quantifiers, one is especially fundamental, so that there is still room for genuine debate as regards the answers to ontological questions construed in the fundamental way. My attempt to explain what is distinctive about the fundamental senses of the quantifiers involves a generalisation of the idea that claims of existence are never analytic.

In The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics , ed. Richard M. Gale. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.

We introduce several theories of composition, including Nihilism, according to which there are no composite objects; Universalism, according to which any objects whatsoever compose something; and an intermediate position we attribute to common sense. We argue that neither common sense nor science can give us an adequate reason to rule out any of these theories. We suggest that as long as one cannot rule out the hypothesis that composite objects are much rarer than common sense takes them to be, one should adopt a policy of regulating one's talk and verbalised thought in accordance with the fiction that common sense is right about composition.

Disclaimer: I'm not sure if I ever believed the claim made in this paper, that ordinary people hold some composition-related views for which they lack good reason. At any rate, I no longer believe this.

Encyclopedia article

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Fall 2019 edition.

Published version (free, online-only)

Discussion pieces

Analysis 77 (2017): 155–65.

My contribution to a book symposium on Boris Kment's Modality and Explanatory Reasoning .

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87 (2013): 717–24.

My contribution to a book symposium on Ted Sider's Writing the Book of the World .

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (2003): 711-718.

I criticise Trenton Merricks 's argument in Objects and Persons for the claim that facts about consciousness do not supervene on the microphysical facts, raising doubts about each of its premises, and showing that in conjunction they have some extremely implausible consequences. I also argue that even if this argument were successful, it would do little to diminish the plausibility of the claim that every event caused by a human organism is “overdetermined” (in Merricks’s sense) by that organisms's constituent atoms. Finally, I pose a dilemma for Merricks: do people ever cause things in virtue of having straightforwardly physical properties like mass? I see trouble either way.

Published version Jstor Penultimate version

Book reviews

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2014.06.33.

Published version (free, online only)

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010.06.16.

Mind 114 (2005): 457-61.

Published version

Unpublished papers

This paper investigates the form a modal realist analysis of possibility and necessity should take. It concludes that according to the best version of modal realism, the notion of a world plays no role in the analysis of modal claims. All contingent claims contain some de re element; the effect of modal operators on these elements is described by a counterpart theory which takes the same form whether the de re reference is to a world or to something else. This fully general counterpart theory can validate orthodox modal logic, including the logic of ‘actually’.

Note: This paper has grown into a book manuscript, entitled Counterparts , which is under contract with OUP. Despite the flaws in this paper version I am putting it up here since some people have cited it.

This paper lays out a novel proposal about the metaphysical foundations of (non-relativistic) quantum mechanics, which has some elements in common with Everett's “Many Worlds” interpretation and some elements in common with Bohm's ”Pilot Wave” interpretation. The view agrees with the Everettians that the quantum wavefunction can be interpreted be interpreted as a complete description of the world in fundamental terms. But it holds that this truth of this description suffices for the existence of an uncountable plurality of “worlds” of ordinary, non-fundamental objects, where each such “world” corresponds to a mapping of points of time to points of configuration space that obeys that Bohmian “Guidance Equation”.

Note: I never published this paper because I decided it needed to be a book. I would still like to turn it into a book! But I have not yet done so, and since I also have no plans to publish the paper, I'm keeping it up here.

A short reply to Roger White’s paper ‘The Generalised Sleeping Beauty Problem: A Challenge for Thirders’. I argue that the mode of reasoning employed by White leads to an implausible view according to which that Beauty's credence in Heads when she wakes up should be near 1/3, unless she is confident that her two wakings will be exactly alike in all evidential respects. I also say how this mode of reasoning should be resisted.

Most recent version: 31/10/2005

Handouts and slides

University of Lisbon: 2022

Handout 1 Handout 2

Princeton: 2020

Handout 1 Handout 2 Handout 3

Notre Dame: 2018

NYU: April 2015

Oxford (Verbal Disputes conference): May 2015

Handout (based on 'Quantifier Variance and the Collapse Theorems')

St Andrews: February 2012; MIT: April 2012

NYU conference on “judgeable contents”, Florence, July 2010

Geneva (Eidos), April 2009; UCL, December 2009; Princeton, April 2010

GAP.7, Bremen, September 2009

Cambridge (Moral Sciences Club), April 2009; Oxford (Philosophy of Physics Seminar), May 2009

SUNY Buffalo, November 2005; NYU, December 2005; Pittsburgh, March 2006; Toronto, May 2006; Arizona Ontology Conference, January 2007; Rutgers, October 2007

Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference (Boise), March 2007

Oxford, January 2007

Slides, in Flash format Handout

Dissertation

Argues that “Strictly and literally speaking, there are no complex entities”. Warning: I am now much less confident than I was when I wrote this dissertation of the power of sentences like this to unambiguously convey the claim I wanted to make.

Miscellaneous

A ‘translation’ of Prior's classic paper , replacing his Polish notation (which is no longer widely taught) with standard logical notation.

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Philosophy poses general questions about reality, knowledge, reasoning, language, and conduct. Some areas include metaphysics (What is the ultimate nature of reality? What really exists and what is mere appearance?), epistemology (What, if anything, can be known and how?), logic (What are the principles of correct reasoning?), and ethics (What is moral value? And what moral values should we adopt?). Other areas address questions concerning the nature of art, law, medicine, mind, politics, religion, and the sciences.

Everyone tends to have or assume answers to these questions. The aim of the department is to enable students to identify, clarify, and assess these answers, both ancient and modern. Philosophy prepares students for a more reflective life, for advanced studies in the subject, and for professions that emphasize analytic thinking and argumentation, such as law, business, and programming.

A student may register for an independent study course (PHIL-UA 301, 302; 2 or 4 credit per term) if they obtain the consent of a faculty member who approves the study project and agrees to serve as adviser. The student must also obtain the approval of either the department chair or the director of undergraduate studies. The student may take no more than one such course in any given semester and no more than two such courses in total, unless granted special permission by either the department chair or the director of undergraduate studies.

Students majoring in philosophy may apply to the director of undergraduate studies (DUS) for admission to the departmental honors program. Eligibility criteria are listed below. Honors in philosophy will be awarded to philosophy majors who successfully complete the honors program with a GPA of 3.65 or higher both in philosophy and overall. The honors program requires at least eleven courses in philosophy (44 credits). These courses must (1) satisfy the requirements for the major and (2) include both PHIL-UA 201 Junior Honors Proseminar and PHIL-UA 202 Senior Honors Thesis Workshop . (For purposes of the major requirements, one of these two courses may be counted as an elective.) Together, the two honors courses constitute a two-semester honors thesis capstone experience. Students must be accepted into the honors program before taking PHIL-UA 201 Junior Honors Proseminar in the spring of the junior year; PHIL-UA 202 Senior Honors Thesis Workshop is then taken in the fall of the senior year. Students who wish to join the honors program and to study away from New York in their junior year should consult early on with the DUS to find a suitable arrangement.

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Doctor of Philosophy Bilingual Education

Ideal for higher education English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, teacher educators, supervisors, administrators, researchers, and curriculum developers, this doctorate prepares you to work in bilingual, bicultural settings.

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Doctor of Philosophy in Bilingual Education

What You’ll Learn

Through course work on bilingualism and bilingual education, you will study:

  • Second or additional language acquisition, pedagogy, and research
  • How to implement alternative research methodologies
  • Intercultural communication
  • Educational foundations

The doctorate supplements your course work with departmental content seminars and a dissertation proposal seminar. Open to doctoral students enrolled in any department or program at NYU, these seminars foster deep conversations on relevant literature and texts, and reflections on issues and research in the field. You’ll work on a paper or project, refine your scholarly voice, and define a dissertation focus. 

Career Opportunities

Upon completion of your doctorate, which emphasizes respect for and appreciation of all languages and cultures, you’ll be prepared for a career as a researcher, ESL/EFL teacher, supervisor, administrator, curriculum developer or teacher in various bilingual and bicultural higher education settings.

Funding for Full-Time PhD Students

NYU Steinhardt offers a competitive funding package for PhD students who study full time. Learn more about our funding opportunities .

Online Info Session

In this session, NYU faculty share information about the PhD programs in the department of Teaching & Learning, including the PhD in Teaching & Learning, PhD in English Education, PhD in Bilingual Education, and PhD in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Faculty provide an overview of the programs and answer questions from potential applicants.

If you have any additional questions about our degree, please feel free to contact Shondel Nero at [email protected] .

Take the Next Step

Advance your personal and professional journey – apply to join our community of students.

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Doctor of Philosophy in Biology

The Ph.D. degree is a research degree. To qualify for the doctorate, a student must satisfactorily complete graduate studies totaling at least 72 points (at least 36 in residence at New York University), pass a qualifying examination, and present an acceptable dissertation. Each doctoral student is expected to have teaching experience at the college level; students gain this experience through teaching assistantships within the department.

Course of Study: Of the 72 points required, a total of 20 points must be in courses and tutorials at the 1000 and 2000 levels including Bio Core 3: Molecules and Cells, BIOL-GA 2003, Bio Core 4: Genes, Systems, and Evolution, BIOL-GA 2004, Statistics in Biology, BIOL-GA 2030, plus two electives. Students must also enroll in The Art of Scientific Investigation, BIOL-GA 3001, Predoctoral Colloquium: Laboratory Rotation, BIOL-GA 3034, Predoctoral Colloquium: Laboratory Rotation, BIOL-GA 3035, and Predoctoral Colloquium: Graduate Student Seminar, BIOL-GA 3015, for six consecutive semesters. Studenst must also attend the Graduate Student Seminar every semester in which they are enrolled in the program in New York City. They must present their research progress in the Seminar once a year. All doctoral students must maintain an average of B or better.

The Department of Biology offers two specialized tracks: Developmental Genetics and BRIDGES. Students who are admitted into the specialized track in Developmental Genetics, which is offered by the Department of Biology with faculty from NYU’s School of Medicine, participate in a DG curriculum that consists of core cores, a special two-semester course in developmental systems, laboratory rotations, seminars, student research symposia, journal clubs, and thesis-related research.

Students who are admitted to Biotic Resources: Integrating Development, Genetics, Evolution and Systematics (BRIDGES), a specialized training track in molecular evolution, are trained to use molecular approaches to understand the evolution and diversity of plants and animal species, and aspects related to the conservation and curation of these biotic resources. The BRIDGES track was developed jointly by faculty at NYU and its affiliated institutions, The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) and The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), which curate and study large collections of plant and animal species.

Qualifying Examination:  The written Ph.D. qualifying examination is generally taken at the end of the first year of full-time study, that is, in the spring semester of a student’s first year. The examination consists of two parts: a written research proposal and an oral presentation of the proposal that is defended before a committee of three faculty members. Committee members are assigned to each student by the Director of Graduate Studies. The proposal may not be in the area of the student’s thesis research. This examination tests the student’s skills in scientific writing, reasoning, analysis and interpretation of data in the literature, integration of scientific concepts, and creativity in the design of new experiments The committee determines whether the student passes or fails the qualifying exam. If the student passes the qualifying exam and has fulfilled the other requirements of the program, the student remains in the program.  Students who fail the qualifying exam can revise the two parts based on the committee’s recommendations and retake the exam no later than July 15 of the same year before the same committee. Students who fail the first exam must pass the second exam and meet all other requirements of the program to remain in the PhD program.

Dissertation Proposal: By the end of the spring semester of their first year, doctoral students must secure a faculty sponsor. By April 1st of the second year, students must secure a thesis advisory committee of at least three faculty members from within the department who have formally agreed to supervise the dissertation research and one faculty member outside the university in addition to the faculty mentor. A dissertation proposal should be presented to the thesis advisory committee and defended orally before June 15 of the second year. Students must also convene annual meetings with their thesis committee by June 15 of each year.

Doctoral Dissertation:  The plan of study and the dissertation research are formulated in consultation with the faculty sponsor and the thesis advisory committee. The dissertation must represent original independent research in a significant area of biology at a level comparable to research published in recognized journals or as professional monographs. When the dissertation is completed and has been approved by the sponsor and by the thesis advisory committee, the candidate defends the results of the research before a faculty committee and the invited outside examiner(s) with expertise in the field of research.

IMAGES

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COMMENTS

  1. Finding NYU Dissertations

    Search tip: For those wishing to search BobCat for dissertations on certain subjects, perform an Advanced Search using the words "Dissertation" AND " [desired subject]." Search Bobcat Please note: NYU dissertations in the Proquest Dissertations & Global Theses database are indexed in BobCat regardless of whether or not they have been embargoed.

  2. Resources

    The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy MIT Encyclopedia in Cognitive Sciences Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The University of Alberta's Cognitive Science Dictionary Online Journals JSTOR, includes past issues of many journals, often back to the founding of the journal.

  3. Home

    Introduction NYU Dissertations The Division of Libraries maintains a non-comprehensive collection of doctoral dissertations completed at New York University. Many of the dissertations available in our collection are cataloged in BobCat. Recent dissertations completed at NYU can be found in the database Dissertations and Theses Global.

  4. Department of Philosophy

    The NYU Department of Philosophy places great importance on maintaining a respectful, safe, and supportive environment for all who work within it. Learn More "The Big Questions" An outreach program aimed at introducing middle and high school students to the ideas that have occupied thinkers for centuries.

  5. Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy

    1. Proseminar, PHIL-GA 1000, (8 points). This seminar is open to first year philosophy PhD. students only. It includes frequent short writing assignments, and the mode of instruction emphasizes discussion rather than lecture. The topics are determined by the instructors but include basic texts and ideas in analytic philosophy. 2.

  6. Doctor of Philosophy Program in Philosophy

    A minimum of 36 of the 44 basic points must be taken in the NYU Department of Philosophy. Twenty-eight of the total 72 points may be in dissertation research, although the student may include other courses toward that total as well.

  7. Doctoral Studies Past Dissertations

    Outstanding Dissertation Award Winners 2013-2018 Past Dissertation Titles 2014-2018 Past winners of the Outstanding Dissertation Award from across NYU Steinhardt.

  8. Ph.D. Dissertations Since 1988

    Barricade: A Journal of Antifascism & Translation Department Fellowships and Awards Ph.D. Dissertations Since 1988 Maternal Origins: Comparative Approaches to Ritual, Cosmogony, and Sexuality in Ancient Greece and India by Tuhin Bhattacharjee, Ph.D., New York University

  9. Philosophy (PhD)

    Its main branches include metaphysics (questions about the structure of reality); ethics (questions about the good, the right, and the virtuous); epistemology (questions about knowledge, truth, and inquiry); philosophy of mind (questions about cognition, consciousness, and emotion); philosophy of language (questions about meaning and its linguis...

  10. Dissertations & Theses

    Dissertations and theses are also excellent bibliography-mining territory. Because submitters of Masters and PhD theses and dissertations are required to conduct a comprehensive survey of the existing literature relevant to their question, these documents often contain useful literature reviews and contain meticulously compiled bibliographies.

  11. Cian Dorr

    Professor of Philosophy, New York University Address: 5 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003. Email: [email protected] ... Since not every proposition that is always true is necessarily true, our thesis is at odds with theories of modality and time, such as those of David Kaplan and Kit Fine, which posit a fundamental symmetry between modal ...

  12. PDF Master of Arts Program in Philosophy Graduate Handbook

    1.5.1 Philosophy M.A. and Law J.D. Degree Program • Students at the New York University School of Law may pursue an M.A.-J.D. dual degree program in philosophy and law. • The School of Law requires 83 credits of study for the J.D. However, in the dual degree program, up to 12 law school credits for courses in the GSAS may be

  13. FAQs from Prospective PhD Applicants

    A 1-2 page statement of academic purpose, describing past and present work as it relates to your intended field of study, and anything unusual we should know when evaluating your application. The application will also prompt you to submit an optional personal history statement. The personal history statement is truly optional.

  14. Ancient Philosophy Ph.D. Track

    The NYU Philosophy Department has two faculty members who specialize in Ancient Philosophy: Marko Malink (joint appointment with Classics, working mainly on Aristotle's logic and metaphysics) and Jessica Moss (working mainly on Plato's and Aristotle's psychology, moral psychology, epistemology and ethics).

  15. Philosophy (BA)

    Philosophy poses general questions about reality, knowledge, reasoning, language, and conduct. ... include both PHIL-UA 201 Junior Honors Proseminar and PHIL-UA 202 Senior Honors Thesis Workshop. (For purposes of the major requirements, one of these two courses may be counted as an elective.) ... New York University's Office of Undergraduate ...

  16. Program of Study (CAS Bulletin)

    Philosophy of Mind (PHIL-UA 80) or Philosophy of Language (PHIL-UA 85) One topics course (PHIL-UA 101, PHIL-UA 102, PHIL-UA 103, or PHIL-UA 104) ... (PHIL-UA 201) and the Senior Honors Thesis Workshop (PHIL-UA 202). (For purposes of the major requirements, one of these two courses may be counted as an elective.) Together, the two honors courses ...

  17. Doctor of Philosophy in English and American Literature

    Requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in English and American literature include the completion of 72 points and the following specific course requirements: Proseminar, ENGL-GA 3006, Guided Research, ENGL-GA 3002, in preparation for Doctoral Examination, Dissertation Seminar I, ENGL-GA 3972, in preparation for submission of the dissertation proposal, Dissertation Seminar II, ENGL-GA ...

  18. Dissertations & Theses

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  19. Doctor of Philosophy in Neural Science

    The Center accepts students only for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. A minimum of 72 points is required, at least 36 of which must be taken in residence at New York University. At least 37 points must be taken in graded courses. All students will be required to complete the following core curriculum during their first year: Cellular Neural ...

  20. PhD, Bilingual Education

    Through course work on bilingualism and bilingual education, you will study: Second or additional language acquisition, pedagogy, and research. The doctorate supplements your course work with departmental content seminars and a dissertation proposal seminar. Open to doctoral students enrolled in any department or program at NYU, these seminars ...

  21. PDF Guidelines on Format, Duplication & Publication for the PhD Dissertation

    The purpose of this document is to state the formal requirements which must be met by NYU Tandon School of Engineering students who are required to submit a Ph.D. Dissertation to qualify for the Ph.D. degree, as described in the NYU Tandon School of Engineering bulletin for a particular academic program. dissertation is basically composed of ...

  22. Doctor of Philosophy in Music

    Doctor of Philosophy in Music. Requirements: All graduate students in the Department of Music are enrolled for the Ph.D. degree and take a total of 72 points of course work. All graduate students receiving funding through the MacCracken program are required to maintain full-time status over the duration of their support—in most cases for five ...

  23. Doctor of Philosophy in Biology

    Doctor of Philosophy in Biology. The Ph.D. degree is a research degree. To qualify for the doctorate, a student must satisfactorily complete graduate studies totaling at least 72 points (at least 36 in residence at New York University), pass a qualifying examination, and present an acceptable dissertation. Each doctoral student is expected to ...