Program Overview

Since the creation of the Undergraduate Course of Philosophy in 2008, the Department of Philosophy has discussed the opening of a stricto sensu Graduate Program, in which the research projects that were brought to the department could be developed. The fact that the course is part of the Institute of Human Sciences and Philosophy at UFF, which has excellent programs in these areas, such as History (grade 7 according to CAPES evaluation), reinforced this conviction. Thus, in 2010, the department’s professors who were engaged in converging researches and who met the agencies productivity requirements came together in two lines of research (History of Philosophy; Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art) and submitted a project for a master’s program to CAPES.

The proposal to create a master’s program in philosophy at UFF was approved by CAPES at the end of 2010, and the program began its activities in July 2011, with its first admission process. Since then, admission processes have been held annually, with classes beginning in the middle of the year. After achieving a grade 4 in the four-year CAPES evaluation, the PFI submitted a Presentation of a Proposal for a New Course (APCN) to open the doctoral course, which was approved in October 2018.

Major Field: Philosophy

The choice of “Philosophy” as the title of the major field of the UFF Graduate Program in Philosophy (PFI) was determined by the diversity of existing research conducted by the program’s faculty members, the vast majority of whom come from UFF’s Philosophy Department. The general title, as comprehensive as possible, originally covered two lines in which the researchers’ work was organized: “Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art” and “History of Philosophy”. This organization was planned based on two forms of articulation: either based on an already established research group, which concentrates the work of a certain number of professors, or based on the integration of researchers by thematic affinity. Considering the increase in the number of professors and the diversification of the research carried out, the Program was restructured, and two new lines of research were established to consolidate and better organize the centers and the works of the researchers: the lines of research “Ethics and Political Philosophy” and “Knowledge and Language”.

PFI has been consolidating itself as a point of convergence for the integration of activities linked to the study of philosophy on the Gragoatá Campus, in Niterói, where the Undergraduate Course in Philosophy, bachelor’s and licentiate degrees, as well as other undergraduate and graduate courses at the Institute of Human Sciences and Philosophy of the Universidade Federal Fluminense, also operate.