A student with notes in front of class holding a binder with a projection on the wall that says Changing Lives.

Department of Philosophy News

The Department of Philosophy offers students a balanced curriculum of courses in the history of philosophy and in the most recent philosophical theories. Philosophy applies reasoning and rigorous argumentation to questions central to human life: What is ethical? What is just? What is art? What is knowledge? What is real?

Current Philosophy News

woman seated on round chair in preschool classroom surrounded by children's books
People |

Kids and everyday people make the best philosophers, according to professor Amy Reed-Sandoval.

Students doing goat yoga on SRWC lawn.
Campus News |

Students examine what it means to live 'the good life.'

students in spring
Campus News |

News highlights starring UNLV students and faculty who made local and national headlines.

Amid a sea of red graduation caps, a 2023 tassel stands out in the crowd
Campus News |

UNLV President Keith E. Whitfield honors six graduates for their unwavering commitment to excellence.

group of women pose while sitting in front of window
Campus News |

Program includes workshops, activities to awaken participants’ inner 'warrior queens.'

group of students stands behind the model they used as part of a presentation
Campus News |

LutumPotentia wins first place in business competition with their idea for making composting easier.

Philosophy In The News

KVVU-TV: Fox 5

Dozens of people gathered near Red Rock Sunday to rally against federal plans to round up wild horses and burros in Nevada. Protesters said the Bureau of Land Management is preparing to remove thousands of animals statewide between now and June, with particular concern for herds in the Spring Mountains. Advocates say this period overlaps with foaling season.

Climbing Magazine

Bill Ramsey got on rock before sport climbing existed. Now, he’s using the screaming barfies, discontinued climbing shoes, and more hacks to send 5.14 at age 65.

Salon

Simone de Beauvoir argued in her 1949 book “The Second Sex” that “humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being.”

Filosofie Magazine

There’s an intimacy in the way people experience borders,” says Amy Reed-Sandoval, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “Borders help shape people’s identities . I once spoke to a woman who had traveled from Canada to New Mexico for an abortion. It was a horrible situation where the baby wouldn’t survive the birth. Because of the controversy surrounding abortion in the United States, she was afraid of being questioned at the border and sent back. She said afterward that the fear of the imaginary border agent had robbed her of the opportunity to grieve for her unborn child. The border changed this woman’s feelings and her life story.”

Las Vegas Review-Journal En Español

Combining the education of children with that of future professionals is the perfect combination for the practice of UNLV philosophy students who have a joint preschool program on campus where they encourage children under 5 years old to do or think about big questions and interact with the world around them daily.

San Bernardino Sun

In 1988, author and women’s studies professor Evelyn Torton Beck published an article entitled “The Politics of Jewish Invisibility” in which she lamented “the silence surrounding the recognition that anti-Semitism, whose shadow continues to fall on women’s lives, is, or ought to be, a feminist issue.”

Philosophy Experts

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An expert in political philosophy, philosophy for children, and Latinx philosophies.

Recent Philosophy Accomplishments

Cheryl Abbate (Philosophy) was interviewed by Fox5 during a rally she co-organized in response to the current Bureau of Land Management (BLM) roundups of Nevada's wild horses and burros.
Amy Reed-Sandoval (Philosophy) published "Overturning Birthright Citizenship in a Post-Roe United States: A Specter of Dehumanization," in The Oxford Handbook of Grounded and Engaged Normative Theory, edited by Brooke A Ackerly, Luis Cabrera, Monique Deveaux, Fonna Forman, Genevieve Fuji Johnson, Gina Starblanket, and…
Amy Reed-Sandoval (Philosophy) presented "Conversion to Judaism: A Model of Ethnoracial Identity Change" at the virtual workshop Race at the Margins: Context, Contingency, and Identity.
Amy Reed-Sandoval (Philosophy) presented comments on the book Matthew Lipman and the Educational Role of Philosophy, co-edited by Megan Laverty and Maughn Gregory, at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, held this year at UNLV.      
Amy Reed-Sandoval (Philosophy) gave the 2026 Ann Gary and Sharon Bishop Endowed Lecture in Feminist Philosophy at California State University, Los Angeles. Her lecture was entitled "Borders as Intimacy Violation: Toward a Feminist Theory of Borders".
Cheryl Abbate (Philosophy) presented an invited talk titled "Taking Feline Well-Being Seriously" at the Cat/People Symposium at Southern Methodist University. In this talk, Abbate argued that promoting animal well-being (human and nonhuman, felines included) involves more than just promoting happiness; it also involves treating and viewing animals…