Washington University in St. Louis, Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program
Higher Education - Saint Louis, Missouri, United States
Washington University in St. Louis, Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program Employees
Washington University in St. Louis, Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program Details
The Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology (PNP) program was originally set up as a graduate program in 1993 with a grant of $1,320,000 from the James S McDonnell Foundation (a further grant of $880,000 was made in 1995). Subsequently the program was expanded to include an undergraduate second major, with the first students graduating in 1999. The PNP Research centre was founded in 2003.PNP is an interdisciplinary program that provides an opportunity to examine the mind from a variety of perspectives. In addition to philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology, PNP draws from other disciplines in a number of areas in which Washington University is a world leader and whose investigations contribute to understanding the mind, including biology, linguistics, education, computer science, and cultural anthropology. Each of the disciplines employs different modes of inquiry to examine various aspects of the mind-brain. - Neuroscience seeks to illuminate the workings of the mind by investigating the brain mechanisms; - Linguistics illuminates the mind by investigating one of its most complex products, language; - Anthropology promotes insight into the mind's workings by looking at the workings of society.The goal of the major is to provide students with an appreciation of differences among approaches used by these disciplines and an understanding of how they can provide converging perspectives on issues in cognition and action.The Graduate Program of PNP is a track within the Ph.D. program in Philosophy. At the graduate level, the department offers a Ph.D. in PNP. PNP supplements graduate training in philosophy with additional course work and research on modes of inquiry, empirical results and theoretical perspectives of psychology and the neurosciences. The aim of the Program is to turn out first-rate philosophers with a strong ancillary competence in areas pertaining to Neuroscience and Psychology. Admission to the Program is highly competitive.
