Why study philosophy in Tartu?
Individual approach. Our programme is unique in being extremely flexible. Doing Master’s with us is not about passing a fixed list of courses; instead, advisors help students to design their own individual study plans so that the programme best suits each student’s interests and takes the student’s educational background into account.
Real “hands-on” research experience. Every Master’s student will be integrated into a larger research group or research project. There is always a number of exciting projects running at the department, each led by a professional researcher. By joining a research group, students will be able to participate in a number of research activities and they will thereby acquire the skills needed to formulate, analyse and discuss philosophical problems, as well as to formulate and present targeted research questions within a broader research plan. Our largest research project for 2014-2020 is “Disagreements”. You can also read about the department’s other ongoing research projects.
No tuition fee for most study places. Instead, scholarships are available! The University of Tartu provides the 9 best applicants with tuition-waiver scholarships. There are 4 tuition-waiver scholarships available for EU applicants and 5 tuition-waiver scholarships available for non-EU applicants. Additionally, all newly admitted international students are considered for a monthly Dora Plus stipend of 350 Euros. The number of stipends varies year to year. More information about different scholarships can be found here.
International staff. Our department is truly international: over the past few years, we have had philosophers from Germany, Austria, UK, Ireland, Italy, Japan, France, Finland, Mexico and USA teaching in addition to Estonians. This is probably the main reason why our students develop very good English skills that enable them to continue their studies abroad. Information about our current professors, researchers, and lecturers can be found here. In addition to our regular staff, we also often have guest lecturers teaching for a term; for example, last year we had prof. Riin Sirkel from the University of Vermont (USA) visiting the department.
Want to know what the student experience is really like? Contact Anastasiia Babash who graduated in 2018. She is happy to share her experience.
Outstanding academic events:
- Every year, we organize a number of international conferences and workshops which bring together leading philosophers from all over the world.
- Every year the department hosts a series of lectures (“The Gottlob Frege Lectures in Theoretical Philosophy”) which are delivered by a world-class philosopher on their most recent work.
In 2019 the Frege Lectures were delivered by Jennifer Nagel (University of Toronto).
The speakers of the past Frege lectures include:
- Tim Crane (Central European University)
- Timothy Williamson (University of Oxford)
- Huw Price (University of Cambridge);
- Jennifer Saul (University of Sheffield);
- François Recanati (Institut Jean Nicod, Ecole Normale Supérieure);
- Wolfgang Spohn (University of Konstanz);
- John Perry (Stanford University);
- David Papineau (King’s College London);
- Stephen Stich (Rutgers University);
- Simon Blackburn (Cambridge University, UK);
- Paul Boghossian (New York University);
- Wolfgang Künne (University of Hamburg).
- Our department also established the Annual Estonian Conference of Philosophy, the organization of which now rotates between the University of Tartu, the University of Tallinn, and the Tallinn University of Technology.
- The department is also closely connected to the Center for Ethics that is involved in various international projects, leads ethics-related research and education in Estonia, and organizes public discussions on ethical matters.