University of Wyoming

Graduate Placement

 The department actively assists graduates from the M.A. program in their search for employment or further education. Many of our graduates have elected to pursue the Ph.D. in philosophy (in boldface below). A healthy percentage of these students have been admitted with full funding to “top-50” programs or programs with specialties in particular areas. Other graduates have elected not to pursue the Ph.D. in philosophy. Such students have gone on to use their philosophical skills in a variety of academic and non-academic professions (e.g., psychology, law, medicine, social work, business, and education).

As our placement record suggests, while many of our students come to the University of Wyoming intending to pursue the Ph.D. in philosophy, many come simply because they love philosophy or desire to advance their careers. Here are some statistics on what our graduates have done since 1995 (List reflects all students who completed their MA at UW):

 

Total graduates 25
Ph.D. in Philosophy 12
Graduate work in another field 6
Law 3
Teaching 1
Unknown/TBA 4

 

Year

Name
 Thesis Title
Graduate School/Professional Institution (Discipline)

2008    

Erik Hoversten
"Faultless Disagreement and the Semantics of Personal Taste"
 Rutgers University (full funding)
[Also had offers from University of Texas; University of California, Davis]

 

T. Scott Dixon
"Problems with Presentism"
University of California Davis (full funding)
[Also had offers from University of Nebraska.]

 

Jeremy Weiss
 "Wants and Reasons"
Ohio State University (full funding)
[Also had offers from University of Florida, Florida State University (full funding); Georgetown University, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, University of Washington - Seattle, Arizona State University (without funding)]

2007    

Allison Fritz
 "Analysis of Nature-Human Conflicts in Light of Just War Theory"
University of Nebraska

 

R. Jason Williams
"Spinoza on the Relation between Substance and Attribute"
Rice University (full funding)
[Also accepted at University of California, Irvine (no funding).]

 

Adam Thompson
"Groundwork for a Concept-based Theory of Confirmation"
University of Nebraska (full funding)

2005    

"Authenticity and Ecosophy-T"
TBA

 

"The Problem of Prior Probabilities in Bayesian Confirmation Theory"
 University of Nevada, Reno

 

Philosophy Ph.D. programs that admitted students graduating in 2005 were: University of Southern Illinois, Carbondale; Purdue University.

2004

John Bengson
"From Inner Perception to Direct Attention"
University of Texas, Austin (Philosophy)

 

Other philosophy Ph.D. programs that admitted students graduating in 2004 were: University of California, Irvine; University of Wisconsin, Madison; University of California, Riverside; University of Colorado, Boulder; University of Florida; Boston University; New School University.

2003

Ben Whiting
"Functionalism as a Reductive Explanation"
University of California, Davis (Philosophy), now at University of Chicago Law School

 

Luke Glowacki
"Establishing a Foundation for Environmental Rights"
 University of Wisconsin, Madison (Law), studied at University of Utah (Philosophy and Law), now at Harvard University (Anthropology Ph.D. program)

 

Other philosophy Ph.D. programs that admitted students graduating in 2003 were: City University of New York (CUNY); University of Maryland; University of California, Santa Barbara; University of Miami.

2002

"Species as Individuals: A Critical Analysis"
Appalachian State University (MSW)

2001

William Devlin
"Science without the Independent World"
Boston University (Philosophy), now Assistant Professor at Bridgewater State College.

 

Jonathan Foltz
"The Epistemic Limits of a Semantic Theory of Indexicals and Demonstratives"
Wake Forest (MBA)

 

Robert Wolverton
"Aristotle and Nietzsche: A Comparison of Virtue"
University of Wyoming (Education)

 

Other philosophy Ph.D. programs that admitted students graduating in 2001 were: University of Maryland; University of Colorado, Boulder; Loyola University; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

2000

Mark Bauer
"Consciousness and Reducibility"
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (Philosophy)

 

Other philosophy Ph.D. programs that admitted students graduating in 2000 were: University of California, San Diego; University of Maryland; Washington University, St. Louis.

 1999

Karson Kavokovich
"Deflationism"
Syracuse, now Rutgers (Philosophy)

 

"Tensegrity and Biological Laws"
University of Indiana (Philosophy)

 

"The Limits of Biocentric Individualism"
University of Wyoming (Education)

 

"Nietzsche and the Truth in Language"
Unknown 

 

Other philosophy Ph.D. programs that admitted students graduating in 1999 were: University of California, Davis; University of California, Santa Barbara.

1998

"An Investigation of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations"
University of Arkansas (Philosophy)

 

"Zarathustra's Descent: Of Art and Mountains"
WyoTech (Instructor)

 

"Nietzsche's Changing Aesthetic"
University of Wyoming (Law)

 

"Berkeley's Archetypes"
University of Wyoming (Law)

 

"Wittgenstein on Certainty: Action and Justification"
Unknown

"A Pragmatic Theory of Parable"
Unknown

1996

"Toward an Alternative Interpretation of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling"
University of Utah (Philosophy)

 

"Assertion Hunting in Forrester's New Deontic Logic"
Vanderbilt (Psychology)

1995

"Wittgenstein on Logical Necessity"
Temple (Philosophy)

 

"Hobbes' Leviathan, Chapter 16 and Gauthierian Authorization"
University of Nebraska, Lincoln (Philosophy)

 

"A Little Something About Old Evidence"
Unknown

 

updated 9/16/09