Jeffrey McDonough, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Harvard History of Philosophy Workshop, recently published a new book titled A Miracle Creed: The Principle of Optimality in Leibniz's Physics and Philosophy (Oxford, 2022). The book “… explores Leibniz's pursuit of optimality in five of his most important works in natural philosophy and shows how his principle of optimality bridges his scientific and philosophical studies.” Read more from Oxford University Press...

Christine M. Korsgaard, Arthur Kingsley Porter Research Professor of Philosophy, won the 2023 Nicholas Rescher Medal for Contributions to Systematic Philosophy.

The Rescher Prize, created in 2010, is “intended to counter present-day tendencies to narrow specialization by rewarding and showcasing the work of philosophers who have addressed the historical ‘big questions’ of the field in ways that nevertheless command the respect of specialists.” You can read more about the 2023 Rescher Medal...

Professor Bernhard Nickel has been voted one of the favorite professors of Harvard’s Class of 2022. He will be featured, along with the rest of Class of 2022’s choices for favorite professors, in the upcoming yearbook. This is his second time receiving this honor.

On the evening of Thursday, January 6, Dr. Trystan Goetze will be presenting a paper entitled “The Moral Emotions and Epistemic Accountability, or, Don’t Get Mad, but There Is No Such Thing as (Purely) Epistemic Blame” as part of the Society for Philosophy of Emotion affiliate program at the...

Professor Sean Kelly has been featured in a recent interview with Tech Podcaster Lex Fridman, which is available for viewing here. In the episode, entitled “Existentialism, Nihilism, and the Search for Meaning,” Professor Kelly discusses existentialism as it pertains to manifold topics, such as...

Philosophy Ph.D. candidate Elís Miller Larsen recently presented “Personal Choice and the American Dream” with Associate Professor of Philosophy at UChicago Agnes Callard virtually at the 2021 ...

Professor Susanna Siegel is featured in a Q&A on how death shapes life in The Harvard Gazette.

“Deaths can seem even more haunting when they’re not recognized as a real loss, which is why it’s so important how deaths are depicted by governments and in mass communication. The genre of the obituary is there to...

On Wednesday, November 10, 2021, Jeff Behrends, James Mickens, and Trystan Goetze participated in a panel discussion on Ethical Reasoning for Computer Scientists as a follow-on to HILT’s 2021 Conference. 

The Department of Philosophy is delighted to announce the winners of this year's Carrier, Adams, Bechtel, and Bowen Prizes, awarded annually to our undergraduate and graduate students for essays and theses/dissertations. You can read more about the history of these prizes below. Congratulations to all of these deserving undergraduate and graduate students!

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The Department of Philosophy congratulates Professor Sean Kelly on being named a Harvard College Professor. Harvard College Professorships are “five-year appointments that include support for research and a semester of paid leave or summer salary,” and are awarded to professors “recognized for their contributions to undergraduate teaching and positive influence on the culture of teaching at the University.” The professorships are funded through a gift from John and Frances Loeb.

Sean Kelly is the...

Professor Amartya Sen has been awarded the 2021 Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences. The Award, which comes with a sculpture by Joan Miró and a cash prize of €50,000, was established to recognize  “the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanitarian work carried out at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions.” Sen was selected from a pool of 41 other candidates, and is...

The Philosophy Department congratulates Andrew Rao (Class of ’21, Mathematics and Philosophy), one of three winners of the 2021 Taelsin Prize. The Prize, “awarded to three graduating seniors who best exhibit a spirit of intellectual adventure in their curricular paths as Harvard undergraduates,”  is given based on the student’s entire course of study over their time at Harvard:

“While many prizes take as their starting point conventional standards of academic excellence like a student’s GPA or exemplary thesis, the Taliesin Prize takes a holistic look at a student’s...

Three Philosophy concentrators have been awarded the Hoopes Prize for 2020-2021 academic year. Funded by the estate of Thomas T. Hoopes (Class of 1921), The Hoopes prize is awarded annually to undergraduates “on the basis of outstanding scholarly work or research... recognizing, promoting, honoring, and rewarding excellence in the work of undergraduates and their capabilities and skills in any subject, projects of research in science or the humanities, or in specific written work of the students under the instruction or supervision of the Faculty.”

The Winners are: