Philosophy asks the big questions: Can we know anything? How should we live? Do we have free will?
We look at what the great thinkers have said about these questions, and examine whether their answers stand up to scrutiny. This requires expertise in critical thinking - evaluating arguments and clearly expressing arguments of your own. These skills learnt in philosophy are transferable to every area of life.
Department News
Professor Ben Vilhauer
His new book is out! Kant on Rational Sympathy, published by Cambridge University Press. The book explains Kant's distinction between rational sympathy and natural sympathy. Rational sympathy is regulated by practical reason and is necessary for adopting as our own those ends of others which are contingent from the perspective of practical rationality. Natural sympathy is passive and can prompt affect and dispose us to act wrongly. Sympathy is a function of a posteriori productive imagination. In rational sympathy, we freely use the imagination to step into others' first-person perspectives and associate imagined intuitional contents with the concepts others use to communicate their feelings. This prompts feelings in us that are like their feelings.
Professor Elise Crull
She participated in a podcast interview, "The Philosophy of Physics with Elise Crull", on Startalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson: https://startalkmedia.com/show/the-philosophy-of-physics-with-elise-crull/
Her book with Cambridge U Press was just published! This project started in 2008 so she is excited for it to FINALLY be done!!!!
She participated in the World Science Festival with Brian Greene last September, which can be viewed on YouTube or the WSF homepage.
Next year (2025) marks the 100th Anniversary of Quantum Physics, and there will be a huge festival on the Danish island of Helgoland, where Heisenberg came up with Quantum Mechanics. She’s been asked to speak at it, alongside several Nobel Laureates in physics. Website here.
Professor Lou Marinoff
Fernando: Beethoven of the Guitar portrays the incredible life and enduring legacy of Fernando Sor, the greatest guitarist-composer of his era, and the first to elevate the guitar from the taverns of Spain to the concert halls of Europe. The complete trilogy is now published in one volume. Promotional offer: the ebook is available for free until midnight October 6th.
The Fantastic Factory of Sanity (Brasil Paralelo, 2023). This feature film deals with a pandemic that is not in the headlines: depression, a disease that affects over 300 million people worldwide. Contributors include psychologists, psychoanalysts, philosophy professors, and journalists, such as Irving Kirsch, Lou Marinoff, Natalia Sulman, Ricardo Ventura, Robert Whitaker, and Sidney Silveira. The film investigates in depth the interests of the pharmaceutical industry, mental disorders, and the trivialization of the use of drugs.
Professor Massimo Pigliucci
His new book, Beyond Stoicism—A Guide to the Good Life with Stoics, Skeptics, Epicureans, and Other Ancient Philosophers (co-authored with Gregory Lopez and Meredith Kunz) will come out on January 7th. The book is a wide-ranging philosophical and practical guide that teaches how to incorporate the wisdom of many ancient philosophers and build upon a Stoic way of life.
Professor Maximiliana Rifkin
Presented their talk: ‘Trans Genocide’ at the: Trans/Feminist Philosophy: Pasts, Presents, and futures Conference. Link here.
Professor Sergey Trostyanskiy
Has three new publications:
- “Pseudo-Archytas on Time’s Existence: Aristotle and Neopythagorean Thought.” Aristotelica, 2024.
- “Iamblichus’ Touching Instant and the Flow of Becoming.” in Loredana Cardullo, John Finamore and Chiara Militello (eds.), Proceedings from the 2023 Catania ISNS Conference. Sedbury; UK: Prometheus Trust, 2024.
- “Basil the Great’s Arguments against the Eternity of the World: A New Assessment.” Studia Patristica, 2025.
On this site you will find a lot of information about Philosophy at CCNY, our courses, our faculty's many books, the Department's projects, and our outreach efforts - all under different tabs on the left menu. And of course be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
CCNY Philosophy Department Mission
Philosophy asks fundamental questions about the nature of justice, reality, knowledge, consciousness, eternity, value, and the meaning of life. Do we really know anything? What is science, and how does it work? Are we just our brains, or does the mind transcend matter? What is free will? Does God exist? Can ethical beliefs be objectively true? How should we change the world to make it better? What have philosophers of the past said about these issues? Are we living in a computer simulation? Can we trust AI to play a role in building the future? To what extent are philosophical concerns and methods a reflection of the broader cultural context in which they arise? The mission of the CCNY Philosophy Department is to support innovative research, teaching, learning, and campus events on topics like these, and to create a supportive environment for our students to develop the skills in logic, analysis, and imagination that move philosophy forward and also prepare them to thrive in life and succeed in a variety of careers.
CCNY Philosophy Department Learning Outcomes
Students graduating with a B.A. in Philosophy will:
1. Be well-versed in reading, writing, reasoning and critical thinking, an increasingly valuable skill set that enhances their prospects in diverse career paths, from graduate programs to many other sectors of society.
2. Be able to read philosophy; that is, to identify the central thesis of a piece of philosophical writing, and to explain the argument adduced in support of the thesis.
3. Be able to reason philosophically and criticize philosophy; that is, to understand and employ the basic principles of logic, to assess the success or failure of a philosophical argument, to distinguish valid from invalid deductive arguments, to discriminate between strong and weak inductive arguments, to evaluate the truth of the premises, and to identify equivocation and fallacious reasoning.
4. Be able to write philosophy; that is, to select and clearly identify an interesting and reasonable claim to defend, to offer persuasive reasons to support the claim, and to construct a logically coherent argument in support of the claim.
5. To be generally familiar with and be able to discuss major aspects of the history of Western philosophy, especially the periods of its classical antiquity (500-300 B.C.) and/or its early modernity (1600-1800), as well as recent and current innovations in philosophy.
6. Be able to articulate and debate a number of philosophical issues in value-oriented areas of philosophy (i.e., ethics, politics, and aesthetics) and in ontologically-oriented areas of philosophy (metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of science).
CONTACT INFORMATION
Professor Ben Vilhauer
Chair
North Academic Center
Room 5/144C
160 Convent Avenue
New York, NY 10031