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Do students interested in history of philosophy need (foreign) language competence?

In our new "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

We have a super talented junior philosophy major with an interest in going to graduate school. They have a special interest in a historical period of philosophy, but they are worried they don't have enough language yet to be competitive for grad programs in that area.

I am not super informed about this, so I wanted to ask this community. Are there really admissions committee members who would hold it against an undergraduate that they don't have much language competence in the period they are interested in given all the opportunities they'll have to get caught up in graduate school? I've tried to assuage their worries, but I want to be sure I am not misinforming them.

Good question! Do any readers have any helpful insights?

Posted in ,

8 responses to “Do students interested in history of philosophy need (foreign) language competence?”

  1. Unfortunately, it depends

    I can only speak to this on the basis of my own experience in my department. I think that the answer will depend on the department, and even more so on the admissions committee members. For example, I have a colleague in my department whose work focuses on German philosophy, and he doesn’t particularly care if a prospective student has a strong background in German. He has taken on many students and helped them to learn German through formal language courses, informal reading groups, self-guided lessons, etc.
    On the other hand, I have another colleague who works in Ancient and his first question when discussing any prospective student is what languages they are competent in.
    I suppose the most prudent advice for your student would be to not worry too much, since the configuration of a given committee is out of their control. You might suggest that they begin trying to learn a language relevant to their historical period of interest though (either on their own by taking a class if your university offers the relevant language). They could then speak in their cover letter about how they understand the importance of acquiring the relevant language skills, have started this process, and are eager to continue it).

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  2. vague impressions

    I agree with Unfortunately that this just varies a lot, but would just add that it will matter more if your student wants to do ancient and is interested in joint classics-philosophy programs, which I think tend to have language requirements for being admitted. (I’m not sure this is a good generalization, but maybe ancient people in general seem to think some background in the language(s) pre-PhD is more important?)
    All that being said any decent PhD program will have mechanisms for your student to spend a lot of time learning/studying the language in question.

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  3. det er ikke en god ide

    I think it would be a big mistake for one to go to graduate school with the intention of doing a PhD in history of philosophy without a good foundation in the relevant languages. Even if one finishes a PhD in, say, early modern, one will not be competitive against the others who have the languages (Latin, French, German). So one will, at best, be competing on a restricted market. When I was an undergraduate I thought of doing a PhD in early modern, but decided against it, largely because of the expectation that one know other languages. I realized that it was not feasible, and at graduate school I met people who were working in early modern and they were bilingual, and learning more languages.

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  4. Historian

    There are plenty of opportunities to learn languages while in graduate school — fellowships to study abroad, language courses, etc. I’m a historian of philosophy, and we don’t ask much about languages when admitting students to work in history. We’re aware that opportunities to study languages prior to graduate school will disproportionately be available to students from privileged backgrounds. My sense is that, while language competence is of course a plus, this is broadly true at many other programs.

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  5. Michel

    You can definitely acquire a language on the way, although not having a foundation definitely means you’re going to have some catching up to do.
    I would just point out that a lot also depends on the period. Some periods (at some programs) may require mastery of three or more languages (at my PhD program, for example, the medievalists often claimed students needed at least four, and ideally six).
    It might also depend on the language. Some languages are easier for native speakers of some language to acquire than other languages which are constructed very differently.

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  6. Eudaimoniac

    I see two questions here: (1) whether to apply to grad school as a historian of philosophy without the relevant languages; and (2) whether admissions committees will hold it against you. I think the answer to (1) is a resounding Yes. If that’s your interest, pursue it. The language is easy enough to acquire on the way, especially if you start early in grad school (I know some who joined an ancient Greek group in their first year).
    As to (2), I agree with those who say it varies with committee (I’ve served on many), so the best approach would be — putting it delicately — not to advertise your lack of grounding in the relevant language.

    Reply
  7. Jacob Joseph Andrews

    I haven’t served on admissions committees so I can’t speak to that. I will say, as a language teacher, that while acquiring a rudimentary competence in a language (eg, getting through a grammar textbook) is not too hard, actually achieving high level reading competency in a language is comparatively much more difficult and takes much more time. Finishing the equivalent of a two semester course in a language is just barely the beginning.
    Three takeaways from that:
    1. If you know you want to or will need to know a language, start now, and commit time to it now, before you have a teaching duties, research obligations, kids, etc.
    2. Focus on reading, reading, reading, over learning new grammar or vocab. Consume as much easy content as possible. One trick is to get multiple intro textbooks and go through them all simultaneously. (Also, don’t neglect the aural component, even if your goal is to read the language.)
    3. You might not have time to actually reach scholar-level competence in a language, but you might have time between now and the fall to take a basic course in the language or the equivalent. At that point you can legitimately claim to have an elementary knowledge of the language, even if you couldn’t, say, pick up Kant or Aquinas and read them fluently. As long as you’re honest about your limitations, I think that’s fine and shows that you’re serious about your scholarly aspirations. This worked for me, but people with more experience in admissions can tell me if that’s actually a good idea.

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  8. MPA

    Yes, not knowing languages will count against the applicant at most highly competitive programs, or at least won’t work in their favor. As someone who applied to Philosophy programs with facility in 4 highly relevant languages plus a fifth very obscure ancient one, I can’t emphasize enough how much this mattered. Nearly every admissions person talked it up after I was offered admission.
    I ended up doing a dissertation in history of philosophy and that’s my primary area. I know several philosophy peers in grad school who tried taking Greek or Latin from scratch while doing the PhD. None really got to deep proficiency because it takes years to work up to it. It’s not impossible, but I think it’s easy to overestimate the ability one will have to focus on a language while jumping through phd program hoops, which can be onerous on their own.
    I’m not saying one needs 4 languages. My two cents: You do need to have at least one primary language related to your interests at least to an intermediate level BEFORE so you can continue to develop it during PhD, so start immediately.

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