The History and the Profile of the Department of Philosophy, University of Delhi

Located in the heart of the main Humanities Block of the Arts Faculty, North Campus, facing an inner quadrangle garden, the Department of Philosophy is one of the oldest in the University of Delhi. This building constructed in the early part of the twentieth century is well known for its red brick colonial structure. This Department began in 1922. 

Various distinguished scholars who have either taught or been associated with the Department of Philosophy, Delhi University include N.V. Banerjee, S.S Barlingay, R. C. Pandeya, Margaret Chatterjee, S.K. Saxena, Ram Chandra Gandhi and Mrinal Miri. A significant  number of eminent philosophers from India and abroad have lectured in the Department. These include Donald Davidson, Willard Quine, Peter Strawson, Akeel Bilgrami, George Henrik von Wright, Karl Potter, Amartya Sen, Anil Gupta, Martha Nussbaum, Sir Richard Sorabjee, Elliot Sober, Paul Humphreys, Tu Weiming, Hajime Nakamura, Arvind Sharma and Anthony Parel, among many others.

The Department has a prestigious programme of teaching and research at the level of M.A. and PhD degrees respectively, covering a diversity of areas in Philosophy, like, Classics of Western Philosophy, Classical Indian Philosophy, Logic, Ethics, Theory of Knowledge, Philosophy of Language, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy, Indian Philosophy of Language, Phenomenology, Existentialism, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Religion, Feminism, Social & Political Philosophy, Kashmir Shaivism, Indian Logic, Indian Aesthetics and Philosophy of Indian Psychology, among others.

The Department has a prestigious programme of teaching and research at the level of M.A. and PhD degrees respectively, covering a diversity of areas in Philosophy, like, Classics of Western Philosophy, Classical Indian Philosophy, Logic, Ethics, Theory of Knowledge, Philosophy of Language, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy, Indian Philosophy of Language, Phenomenology, Existentialism, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Religion, Feminism, Social & Political Philosophy, Kashmir Shaivism, Indian Logic, Indian Aesthetics and Philosophy of Indian Psychology, among others.

The members of the Department have been actively participating in seminars and conferences in India and abroad.  The Department draws students for all its programmes from different parts of India and all major countries abroad.  These have included include students who visited the department under the exchange programmes signed with University of California, the University of Edinburgh, University of Ottawa and Carleton University.

  All members of the Faculty are actively engaged in research, which has resulted in the publication of a large number of books,    anthologies reports, and articles in prestigious Philosophy in Indian and International journals. and anthologies. The Department has also undertaken several research projects during the last four decades.  It organized twenty-one days Refresher Course in “Logic and Language” in the past, and various international and national seminars in the course of its history.

 The Department has a large library of its own that caters-catering to the needs of the Masters and Research students., and the research interests of   the faculty members. There is also a spacious reading room and seminar hall. Facilities like networked computers and facilities for printing are available to all students and faculty and wifi has been provided. Special types of equipment are available in the Department for the viewing of films, power point projections etc.

The Department regularly holds its special lectures, seminars and discussion groups in the department Library.