About Our Department
Galatasaray University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Philosophy began offering undergraduate program in the 1999-2000 academic year, graduate program in 1998-1999, and doctoral program in 2004-2005. Since its founding, bilingual (French-Turkish) instruction has been maintained across all three programs.
The primary goals of our department are to contribute to the development of a philosophical perspective, to provide students with a knowledge of the history of philosophy, and to enhance their skills of inquiry into philosophical themes. In line with these goals, the curricula prepared at all three levels convey the universal philosophical heritage to students through courses dedicated entirely to the history of philosophy, while also introducing students to new problems and new orientations in the ever-evolving world of contemporary philosophy through systematic philosophy courses.
Undergraduate students may, in addition to their compulsory and elective philosophy courses, select courses from outside the department with the approval of their advisors. In order to provide direct access to classical philosophical texts, students are given the opportunity to learn Latin, Ancient Greek, and Ottoman Turkish, in addition to French — the language of instruction — and English, in which they are expected to reach a certain level of proficiency.
In accordance with the bilingual nature of the department's education, foreign faculty members also teach on a full-time or short-term basis. These seminars, which span a period of two weeks, provide a productive intellectual exchange environment from which both students and academic staff can benefit, and create opportunities for the development of collaborative future projects. Thanks to these same academic relations, some faculty members of our department have taught as visiting professors abroad for various periods of time, extending up to one semester. Another dimension of internationally established cooperation is the Socrates-Erasmus student exchange program, which we launched in the 2002–2003 academic year. Within the framework of this program, students who meet the necessary requirements may spend one or two semesters of their undergraduate education at a university with which Galatasaray University has an agreement. Under the Erasmus-Socrates program, we have agreements with various universities located primarily in France, as well as in Italy, Switzerland, and Belgium, and it is planned that this program will be gradually expanded to cover additional countries. A similar collaboration is maintained at the doctoral level through co-supervised doctoral programs (doctorat en cotutelle/co-direction).
Lapsus, an academic peer-reviewed journal published through the joint efforts of the Departments of Philosophy and Sociology, features articles written in Turkish, French, or English.
The journal's first issue was published in 2006.