The Philosophy Department at the University of Salzburg, Faculty of Social Sciences, offers a two-year MA in Philosophy. The program is open to both Austrian and international students. Courses can be taken either exclusively in English, or partly in English and partly in German. Here you will find the CURRICULUM.
The Philosophy Department in Salzburg is one of the few fully analytic departments in continental Europe. Building on the strengths of the department, students choose courses on a wide range of topics, including Philosophy of Science (with a focus on Philosophy of Climate Science, Evidence and Evidence-Based Decision Making, Formal Epistemology, Philosophy of Physics), Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Logic, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Psychology, Logic, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Ethics. The courses available for MA students are mostly small seminars that allow students to work closely with faculty.
The philosophy faculty includes experienced senior faculty members as well as young upcoming researchers. The theoretical philosophy unit is led by Professor Christopher Gauker; the logic and philosophy of science unit is led by Professor Charlotte Werndl (also a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics). Other members of staff include Johannes Brandl, Bettina Bussmann, Alexander Hieke, Leonhard Menges, Julien Murzi, and Patricia Palacios.There is also a large community of postdocs and visiting researchers.
The Philosophy Department in Salzburg has a lively, collegial, and research-oriented atmosphere. Graduate students in Salzburg regularly take part in the full variety of events at the Department. These include an ongoing colloquium series (approx. 12 speakers per year), research seminars, where staff members and philosophers from other universities present their work, the graduate seminar, in which MA and PhD students present their work to faculty and peers, and a number of workshops and conferences, often organized in collaboration with the Department’s international research partners in the US (UC Irvine), in England (LSE London), and Germany (LMU Munich). Students can also choose from a variety of exchange programs, with possible destinations including the University of Groningen and the University of Konstanz. Finally, every year the Postgraduate Philosophy students in Salzburg organize SOPhiA, currently the largest yearly graduate conference in philosophy in Europe.
The MA program in English is taught exclusively in the Faculty of Social Sciences. In addition, the University of Salzburg offers a German-language MA program in Philosophy at the Faculty of Catholic Theology. The offerings of the Philosophy Department in the Faculty of Catholic Theology may better suit the interests of some applicants who have the necessary German language skills.
General Information about the Master’s Program
Language prerequisites
All students need to be competent in English at the C1 level or higher. Students who wish to take courses in German should be competent in German at the B2 level or higher. German speaking students can do up to 50% of the required course work in German. Master’s theses may be written in English or German.
Duration and structure of the program
The MA is a two-year program (four semesters, 120 ECTS). The first three semesters focus on coursework (seminars, lectures, essay writing) and provide an opportunity to interact with other graduate students, as well as with visiting faculty in the colloquium-series of the department. The fourth semester is dedicated to writing a Master’s thesis.
Academic prerequisites
For admission to the Master’s program, students must have completed a bachelor’s degree from a recognized domestic or foreign University or post-secondary educational institution. The degree need not be in philosophy. Both students with or without a degree in philosophy must provide evidence during a qualitative selection process that they are sufficiently prepared for succeeding at the MA level. If a student’s qualifications are considered insufficient for entering the MA-program in philosophy, the student may be required to complete additional course work worth up to 45 ECTS credits. See below for special regulations for students holding a BA from the University of Salzburg.
Costs
Tuition is free for EU-citizens. The current rate (2023) of tuition fees for non-EU students is 727,- Euros per semester. The cost of living in Salzburg is comparable to that in large European cities such as Berlin or Paris. For information about scholarships, see this link
Application procedure:
For information on how to apply, follow this link.
