<p>I’m happy to talk up the philosophy department at the University of Chicago, being a potential major myself. Martha Nussbaum is certainly the most significant figure in the department, famous for her work with Aristotle, classical philosophy and philosophy of law. Also impressive is the ever-loved Ted Cohen, who I believe specializing in philosophy of art. We also have the Lears, one specializing in ancient philosophy and the other in philosophy of psychology. However, these two may be leaving soon for… Yale I think. Another character is Davidson, who I believe knew Foucault personally, and is the resident expert of his philosophy. </p>
<p>As you mentioned, the department is well-balanced. There are philosophers of science (Richards and Davey with Wimsatt as emeritus), a logician (Bridges) and still more experts in ancient philosophy (Callard and Forster, who also does German philosophy). I don’t know much about the guys who specialize in metaphysics/epistemology (Conant, Haugeland, Finklestein), except that Finklestein does magic tricks and the other two have magical hairdos. There’s Schultz and Pippin, who do political philosophy. Benoist and Kremer are the analytics, and Benoist is French (I believe), so he must know something about existentialism. Some of the younger members (the other Callard, Ford) are ethicists. According to Stern’s bio (which I had to reread because I forgot about him), he’s specializes in mediaeval philosophy and ‘theory of reference’…?</p>
<p>Although I haven’t taken any philosophy courses yet, I’ve encountered philosophy and these philosophers more than once. SOSC and HUMA both incorporate philosophers. I’ve taken Media Aesthetics, which is essentially a philosophy of art, literature and music course. We’ve read Plato, Aristotle, Hume and about a page of Smith. My SOSC is Classics of Soc&Pol, where we’ve read Plato, Aristotle, al-Farabi, Aquinas and Machiavelli. I’ve heard speeches from Cohen and both Lears… I almost ran into Cohen on my way out of the building–he was having a cigarrete… fun times.</p>