Philosophy at Dundee Saved—In Part, For Now (guest post)

“A small programme with a large international reach has bucked the trend of closures across the arts and humanities.”

Over the summer, administration of the University of Dundee announced a plan to cut costs by, among other things, no longer offering students the option of majoring in philosophy. A campaign was launched to save the philosophy program there, and a petition in support of it garnered close to 6000 signatories.

As a result of the petition, statements from academic organizations, and the efforts of faculty and students, philosophy at Dundee will continue, as the Philosophy Team at Dundee explains in the following guest post.

Thanks to Oisin Keohane for keeping us informed.

A Statement from the Philosophy Team at the University of Dundee

Philosophy at Dundee will continue. Three joint honours degrees—Art and Philosophy, English and Philosophy, and Philosophy and Psychology—will carry on recruiting, and our plans to develop proposals for new undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications in Philosophy and AI have been approved, with support on record from Luciano Floridi and Shannon Vallor. Neither of those things were on the table in June when the proposal to suspend all named philosophy degrees was first announced.

The ground shifted because of you. Nearly 6,000 people have signed our petition, including academics at 450 universities in 51 countries, from Harvard to Tokyo, Sydney to Stellenbosch. A small programme with a large international reach has bucked the trend of closures across the arts and humanities.

The picture is not all good. The University still intends to suspend single honours Philosophy and multiple joint honours degrees, including Philosophy and Politics, Philosophy and Film, and History and Philosophy, without providing evidence of any clear financial rationale or assessment of the risks. Moreover, Philosophy staff remain at risk of redundancy, and the University is still seeking 154 cuts (in addition to the hundreds they made last year).

We want to thank the people who made the difference. As well as Floridi and Vallor, Jack Reynolds and Katrina Mitcheson wrote personally to the University’s management. The British Philosophical Association, the Scots Philosophical Association, the American Philosophical Association, the Australasian Association of Philosophy, the International Federation of Philosophical Societies, the Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy, The British Society for Phenomenology, the Society for European Philosophy and the Society for Women in Philosophy UK each put their name behind us.  We are particularly grateful to Simon Kirchin, Fiona Macpherson and Helen Beebee of the British Philosophical Association, and to Jack Lyons of the Scots Philosophical Association.

We are grateful too to former colleagues, among them Phil Braham and the late Professor Nicholas Davey, who co-established the Art and Philosophy degree with Duncan of Jordanstone almost twenty-five years ago.

Our largest debt is to our students, past and present. John Suchet and Pamela Butchart spoke up at the very beginning, when the campaign had nothing but a petition and an argument. Their early support mattered more than they will know. And to everyone in Dundee who signed: this is a programme embedded in its city and answerable to it, and that endorsement is not something we take lightly.

Our thanks also to The Courier, The Herald, The Scotsman, Times Higher Education, The Irish Times and the Daily Nous itself for covering the story, and to everyone involved in ‘This is what you’ll lose’, the Art and Philosophy exhibition against the cuts at Generator Projects.

We now want to build on this. The case for philosophy in the context of AI is already on the public record: Scotland’s AI Strategy 2026–2031 names Amanda Askell, who graduated in Philosophy from Dundee, as one of only five AI Pioneers with Scottish connections.

The world now knows where we are. We look forward to welcoming the students who come next.