International Studies - Philosophy

International Studies majors are required to demonstrate basic proficiency in a modern foreign language. This can be accomplished in one of the following ways:

• Completion of the fourth quarter college-level foreign language course
• Proficiency Exam
• AP Language or Literature Exam
• IB Language Exam
• SAT II Language Exam
• Graduation from high school outside of the United States

All lower division philosophy courses must be taken for a letter grade of C- or better.

• PHIL 10. Introduction to Logic

Disclaimer: For IS-Philosophy majors whose first quarter at UCSD was prior to Fall 2023, please refer to the archived Fall 2018 - Summer 2023 Disciplinary Focus course list (see below) in addition to the following list. Courses accepted for the major on the archived list and the current list will be accepted for majors whose first quarter was before Fall 2023. 

All eight (8) courses must be 4 units, upper-division and taken for a letter grade of C- or better.

Course Cluster A - History of Philosophy:

• PHIL 100. Plato
• PHIL 101. Aristotle
• PHIL 102. Hellenistic Philosophy
• PHIL 107. Hegel
• PHIL 110. History of Philosophy: Ancient (Plato, Aristotle)
• PHIL 111. History of Philosophy: Early Modern (Descartes, Locke, Hume)
• PHIL 112. History of Philosophy: Late Modern (Kant, Hegel)
• PHIL 155. Mexican Philosophy (DEI Course)
• PHIL 156. Latinx Philosophy
• PHIL 158. Topics in Chinese Philosophy*
• PHIL 161. Topics in the History of Ethics (Confucius, Aristotle, Mill)
• PHIL 166. Classics in Political Philosophy (Plato, Marx, Arendt)
• PHIL 169. Feminism and Philosophy*
• PHIL 180. Phenomenology (Brentano, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty)

At least two (2) of the eight (8) upper-division courses must be selected from Course Cluster B.

Course Cluster B - Philosophical Topics in Contemporary International Studies:

• PHIL 132. Epistemology*
• PHIL 136. Philosophy of Mind*
• PHIL 137. Moral Psychology*
• PHIL 138. Responsibility*
• PHIL 134. Philosophy of Language
• PHIL 139. Global Justice
• PHIL 148. Philosophy and the Environment
• PHIL 160. Ethical Theory
• PHIL 162. Contemporary Moral Issues
• PHIL 163. Biomedical Ethics
• PHIL 164. Technology and Human Values
• PHIL 165. Freedom, Equality, and the Law (DEI Course)
• PHIL 167. Contemporary Political Philosophy
• PHIL 170. Philosophy and Race (DEI Course)
• PHIL 173. Topics in Bioethics

At least one (1) of the eight (8) upper-division courses must be selected from Course Cluster C.

Course Cluster C - Logic Requirement:

• PHIL 120. Symbolic Logic I
• PHIL 122. Advanced Topics in Logic
• PHIL 123. Philosophy of Logic

The remaining three (3) courses can be any upper-division philosophy courses listed in Clusters A, B and C.

All three (3) courses must be upper-division, 4 units and taken for a letter grade of C- or better.

• Courses must be selected from the approved Interdisciplinary Elective Course List.
  
  • • Note: All courses must be selected from departments outside of the disciplinary focus department.

Course Pre-requisites: Students are responsible for meeting all departmental pre-requisite courses.  Please refer to the General Catalog for additional information.

Three (3) of the eleven (11) Disciplinary Focus and Interdisciplinary Elective courses must focus on one region.

• Note: This requirement is an overlap requirement comprised of courses that count for both the Disciplinary Focus or Interdisciplinary Elective courses and the Regional Requirement.
• Regional Requirement courses may come all from within the Disciplinary Focus, Interdisciplinary Electives, or a combination of the two.
• Possible regions include: Africa, East Asia, Europe, Latin America or the Middle East.