About

Do you like to question assumptions and traditions? Are you interested in honing your logical skills so as to better understand the world and become better at rational persuasion?

As a philosophy major at East Carolina, you will study ancient, modern, and contemporary philosophy. You will consider, and attempt to answer, questions like the following: What is the ultimate nature of reality? What is knowledge, and can anything really be known? What is the nature of a person? What is free will, and are people free? What is the right way to live your life? You will learn a body of philosophical knowledge, and you will develop your skills in ethical decision-making. You will also sharpen your analytical and logical skills: you will learn better how to think, argue, and protect yourself against rhetorical tricks.

Studying philosophy will help you think, challenge authority and assumptions, and discuss age-old conundrums and newly discovered paradoxes, with smart and interesting people who will push you to think outside the box.

ECU Advantage

Many majors will teach you particular skills that may be useful for certain jobs. But it is shortsighted to view your major as job training. This is true for several reasons. One is that you often don't end up in the profession you thought you would. Another is that nowadays most people change professions, often more than once, during their work careers. Also, the skills and knowledge required for a particular profession might be obsolete 10 or 20 years later. What you want from your major is to develop the skills and knowledge that will never become obsolete, and which will be the foundation for any good job you could ever have. This is why philosophy is special: it teaches you how to think, how to articulate nuanced ideas, how to argue for or against a claim, and how to draw out the surprising implications of a view.

The study of philosophy prepares you for any good career you want. (This is borne out by the high scores on standardized professional school tests and mid-career salary data for philosophy majors.) ECU's Department of Philosophy has a high ratio of instructors to majors, so you can expect more one-on-one face time and individual attention from your instructors and adviser. Our graduates go on to all sorts of careers, from professor to lawyer, to medical doctor to horse trainer to security consultant.

What You Will Study

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