Villanova University offers a doctoral program in Philosophy specializing in Continental Philosophy and the history of Philosophy. In addition to its regular annual assistantships, the University also offers one special assistantship for students wishing to pursue Interdisciplinary Studies in Philosophy and Theology leading to the Ph.D. through the Graduate Philosophy Program. In addition, graduate students at Villanova have the opportunity to develop an expertise in the field of bioethics. They also have the opportunity to study at other area graduate programs through affiliation with the Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium. Qualified students are eligible for four-year financial awards (including tuition remission and a stipend).

The Doctoral Philosophy Program offers courses that emphasize Continental Philosophy and the History of Philosophy. Our strengths in Continental Philosophy range from its beginnings in Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, through the classic texts of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Beauvoir, and Merleau-Ponty, up to the contemporary treatments of hermeneutics, deconstruction, genealogy, literary, critical, cultural, and feminist theories found in writers like Gadamer, Ricoeur, Levinas, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Lyotard, Habermas, Baudrillard, and Irigaray.

The Department's emphasis on the History of Philosophy is especially strong in the program’s focus on ancient Greek philosophy, as well as medieval philosophy, and early modern philosophy. Additionally, the department has recently added a specialist in environmental philosophy, enabling students to explore intersections between Continental philosophy, the History of Philosophy, and questions regarding constructions of nature, animality, and contemporary environmental exigencies.

More specifically, the doctoral program at Villanova leads students to ask questions about the relation between modernity and post-modernity, the very idea of a tradition, the possible relation between art and truth, the varieties of feminist theories, classical ethical and political issues,  the relation between humanism and post-humanism in the more-than-human world, and the character of religion in the postmodern situation.