We are a lively community of philosophers with a wide range of theoretical and practical interests. We offer a Master of Arts in Philosophy, a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, a minor in Philosophy, and a minor in Law and Philosophy. Our traditional strengths in ethics and epistemology are central to the Department. Our students operate the Philosophers' Forum, an organization for discussing philosophers, philosophical ideas, and career choices for philosophy graduates.
Department News
Billy Dunaway's "Testimony and Interpretation" (with Matt Benton) appeared in Synthese.
His review of New Essays on Normative Realism (eds. Boghossian and Peacocke) appeared in the European Journal of Philosophy.
He will present "Rethinking Creeping Minimalism" at the 23rd Annual Madison Metaethics Workshop.
Spencer Ivy's "Three grades of subject-dependency in object perception" (with Aleksandra Mroczko-Wąsowicz) appeared in Synthese.
His "Framing Effects in Object Perception" (with Aleksandra Mroczko-Wąsowicz) appeared in Review of Philosophy and Psychology.
He presented "Creativity, Control, and the Puzzle from Incubation " at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology.
Nic Portwood presented “The Moral ‘Choke’: An Analogy from Sports for Ethics” at the 17th Annual Meeting of the St. Louis Area Philosophy of Science Association (SLAPSA).
Jill Delston won the 2026 UMSL Arts and Humanities Award presented at the Research, Creativity, and Innovation Celebration.
She won the 2026 Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Collaborative Research and Creativity.
She won an UMSL Gender Studies Small Grant 2025, "Microaffirmations in Clinical Medicine."
Her Imprecise Medicine: Precision Health Ethics is forthcoming with Oxford University Press.
Her chapter, "The Sociality Solution: Virtue, Vice, and Community" will appear in Philosophy and the Evolution of Virtue and Vice, eds. Michael T. Dale, Isaac Wiegman, Routledge.
Her article, “Restorative Justice: Intimate Partner Violence and a Theory of Justice” (with Annah Bender) is forthcoming at Social Theory and Practice.
She will present “Microaffirmations in Clinical Medicine” at the NASSP, University of Waterloo.
She presented “Precision Health Ethics” at NextGen Pathways 2026, Missouri S&T.
She was a panelist at the Disrupt Health Care Innovation Summit.
She was a guest speaker at HerScope, UC Davis.
She was a panelist for“Gender Bias in Medicine” at SLU Medical School.
She was featured on an episode of Inside UMSL with Nate Fleming.
Eric Wiland presented "Aristotle, Craft, and Self-Creation" at the Bled Philosophical Conference, 2026. (Also to the Well-Being Working Group).
Stephanie Ross is writing The Philosophy of Conversation: Talking Pleasures and Perils for Bloomsbury Press.
DeWitt 'Witt' Spiller, M.A. student, will begin the Ph.D. program in Philosophy at Brown University in 2026.
Cameron Jackson, M.A. student, will begin the Ph.D. program in Philosophy at University of Missouri in 2026.
The Department now offers a Bioethics Graduate Certificate
Older Philosophy Department news can be found on the News page.
