Image Carousel with 2 slides
A carousel is a rotating set of images. Use the previous and next buttons to change the displayed slide
-
Slide 1: Rodin's The Thinker
-
Slide 2: iStock photo
Our Student, Mohsen Mahdawi
It has come to the attention of members of the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University that one of our students, Mohsen Mahdawi, was detained in Vermont by agents of the Department of Homeland Security.
We express our horror and dismay at the fact that a legal resident of the United States — someone who has been accused of no crime — should be detained in this manner. We would like to convey our sympathy and our support to Mohsen, to his family, and to his friends.
We call upon the Provost and Acting President of Columbia University to assist by all means, including through the provision of material and legal resources, any Columbia student targeted or detained—and seemingly only for having exercised their right to the free and peaceful expression of political opinion.
UPDATE: We are delighted to learn that a Federal judge in Vermont has ordered Mohsen's release: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/30/mohsen-mahdawi-released-immigration-detention.
Philosophy at Columbia University
Home to a distinguished tradition of philosophical research and teaching, the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University provides a comprehensive academic atmosphere for pursuing advanced study in a wide range of philosophical subjects and methods—systematic, analytic, and historical. The Department has a faculty with an unusually broad range of interests and areas of expertise that span the main periods of the history of western philosophy and nearly every major area of contemporary philosophical debate.
Department News
Professor Axel Honneth receives 2025 GSAS Faculty Mentoring Award
The faculty mentoring award is presented annually to two faculty of Columbia University to recognize excellence in mentoring PhD and MA students during their graduate careers. We congratulate Professor Honneth on receiving this award and for all his work in advising our students.
"Land with No Rider" by Professor Tamar Lando premieres in New York City at the Margaret Mead Film Festival, American Museum of Natural History
Once one of the ranching and mining heartlands of the United States, New Mexico no longer has the workforce nor environmental conditions to support its dwindling number of cattle ranchers. Those who remain recognize ranching’s importance, seeking to continue tending the land in the face of encroaching subdevelopment. Land With No Rider captures the transcendent New Mexican skies, illustrating with pastoral breadth why these ranchers remain.
We congratulate Emeritus Professor Philip Kitcher on receiving the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Humanities for 2025.
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Humanities category has gone in this seventeenth edition to the Anglo-American philosopher Philip Kitcher, described by the committee as a “humanistic intellectual” whose trailblazing work addresses a broad spectrum of the core questions of our time.