About Writing an Honors Thesis in Philosophy:

What It’s All About:

An Honors Thesis in philosophy is an independent research project done in philosophy by a senior philosophy major under the direction of a faculty advisor.

Honors Theses are typically 30-40 pages in length (the length of a typical philosophy journal article), and must represent an original contribution to the discussion of some topic within professional academic philosophy.

An Honors Thesis can be on any topic in philosophy, including but not restricted to: History of philosophy (ancient or modern), ethics, political and social philosophy, aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, and logic.

Students who successfully write and defend an Honors Thesis in philosophy, complete all the requirements for a philosophy major, and finish with an overall GPA of at least 3.2, will graduate with Honors in Philosophy.

Before You Start:

Writing an Honors Thesis represents a full academic year of work, demanding at least as much time and attention as two semester-long courses. It will require you to work in an independent, self-motivated way. You will receive guidance from your advisor, but the onus will be on you to come up with a new and worthwhile contribution to the philosophical discussion of your chosen topic. For many students—even for many excellent and devoted philosophy students—it would be a more valuable use of time to take two more philosophy courses than to write an Honors Thesis. (And we have sent Carolina Philosophy majors who did not write Honors Theses at all on to excellent graduate schools.) Writing an Honors Thesis is for you just in case you have in mind a major independent project in philosophy that you know you want to spend a year or so working on anyway, and would like to get academic credit for it.

• In order to begin the process of writing an Honors Thesis in philosophy, you must satisfy the following requirements:
• You must have an overall GPA of at least 3.2.
• You must be a declared Philosophy major (it’s okay if Philosophy is your secondary major).
• You must be a rising senior.
• You must be clearly on track to finish all the requirements for the Philosophy major.

• And most importantly: You must find a faculty member in the Philosophy Department who is willing to agree, at least tentatively, to be your thesis advisor.

You cannot write an Honors Thesis without an advisor. And no one is required to serve as your advisor; you need to convince someone to take you on. It is easiest to approach a faculty member who already knows you. But in some cases, the best fit given the topic you want to work on will be someone else. Feel free to ask the Director of Undergraduate Studies (John Roberts: johnroberts@unc.edu) for advice about whom to approach.

Getting Started:

You should get started in the semester before you plan to officially start work on your Honors Thesis—in most cases, this means you should get started in the second semester of your Junior year.

Approach one or more faculty members about the possibility of being your thesis advisor. When you secure an advisor, let the Director of Undergraduate Studies know, and ask to be registered for the course PHIL 691H in the following semester. There is no special paperwork you will need to fill out or anything like that. But you should make sure that the Director of Undergraduate Studies knows about your plans, and you should ask your advisor to let the D.U.S. know that she or he has agreed to serve as your advisor.

Feel free to ask the Director of Undergraduate Studies—or any other Philosophy professor you feel comfortable with—for advice and guidance at this time.

First Semester:

During the first semester you will meet regularly with your advisor—every week or every other week—in order to discuss your project. You will do a lot of background reading this semester; your advisor will help you select things to read and talk about them with you.

Also, during this semester you will be enrolled in the course PHIL 691H. This class will have a meeting time once per week. It will not meet every week, but it will meet on many weeks. At its meetings, the students working on Honors Thesis projects will take turns giving informal presentations to one another about the topics they are working on. All thesis-writers are expected to give and receive feedback at these meetings. The Director of Undergraduate Studies will be present at these meetings.

At the end of this semester, you will take a brief written exam on your project and the background reading you have been doing which will be set by your thesis advisor.

Second Semester:

By the beginning of the second semester, you need to be hard at work on the actual writing of your thesis. Your advisor will help you put together a committee of three faculty members who will read and evaluate your thesis. You will schedule a thesis defense, at which your three committee members will ask you questions about the final product. In the light of your thesis and your performance at the defense, the committee will decide whether you have successfully completed the requirements for graduating with Honors in Philosophy.

The defense will need to take place by a certain deadline, which varies from year to year. It is usually in mid-April.

Honors Theses by Chapel Hill Philosophy Students:

For the abstracts of Honors Theses written by Philosophy majors in recent years, please visit:

http://www.honors.unc.edu/thesis_view.shtml