Specializations

The Research Master in Philosophy offers teaching in the entire range of philosophical disciplines, and if some course should not be taught at one of the participating universities, it will be at the other, an hour's train ride away. However, students enrolling at Tilburg are expected to choose one of the following specializations:

Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (TiLPS)
In Epistemology and Philosophy of Science you study topics from general philosophy of science, the philosophy of the natural sciences, and the philosophy of the social and behavioural sciences. This is done by applying a spectrum of methods ranging from the traditional method of conceptual analysis to the application of formal methods, often in close interaction with the sciences.

Logic, Language, Rationality, and Information (TiLPS)
In Logic, Language, Rationality, and Information you help develop logics that fit ordinary rational behaviour better than straightforward applications of classical logic do. There is a special interest in the philosophy of language and in logics for ordinary language, the normal vehicle of reasoning.

Philosophy of Mind
In Philosophy of Mind you not only study the rationality of the science of the mind-psychology-in its relation to other disciplines, such as anthropology, economics, and neuroscience, but you also study the rationality of human and animal cognition itself. The role of the body, the environment, and evolution take central stage here.

Legislation and Identity
In Legislation and Identity you focus on the study of legal and political philosophy, with a special emphasis on issues pertaining to political representation, collective identity, and the first-person plural perspective of a "we" as a putative unity in legislative action. You will draw on strands of analytic philosophy, phenomenology, and the history of philosophy.

Morality and Ethical Life
In Morality and Ethical Life you concentrate on fundamental ethics, social philosophy and the history of philosophy. You will study the question how the tradition of German Idealism can be made productive for the understanding of the relation between Morality and Ethical Life in a globalized and multicultural world.

Economy and Ethics
In Economy and Ethics you study the moral dimensions of markets and market processes. Research questions include: What are the possibilities and limitations of the market from a moral point of view? How can markets serve a plurality of interests within society, and how can they contribute to social and ecological sustainability and general welfare?

Culture, Identity and Representation
In Culture, Identity and Representation you will focus on the hermeneutics of representation and from this point of view will study issues such as identity, narrativity, corporality, art and the evolution of communication. You will engage, in particular, with the work of Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Lyotard, Lacoue-Labarthe, and Nancy.