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2025-2026 Catalog
Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
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 Return to: Academic Fields
Professors: Suresh (Economics), Griffith (Philosophy), Kumar (Economics), McKeever (Philosophy), Menkhaus (Political Science), Smith (Economics)
Associate Professors: Bullock (Political Science), Crandall (Political Science), Harper-Shipman (Africana Studies), Layman (Philosophy-Chair), Marsicano (Educational Studies)
Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) prepares students to address questions of pressing social and political concern using a range of complementary disciplinary tools. Many of the questions that concern PPE lie at the heart of contemporary political discourse. For example: Which economic system is most just? When are markets exploitative? Should the United States pay reparations for slavery? How can we address persistent structural poverty? What does a just immigration regime look like? PPE at Davidson synthesizes tools and approaches from multiple disciplines, including (but not limited to) those of Philosophy, Political Science, and Economics, to equip students to understand, analyze, and answer moral, political, and economic problems such as these.
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Major requirements
The PPE major is composed of 10 courses (11 for students pursuing honors), that fulfill the following requirements, some of which include subrequirements as detailed below. 1) Introduction to PPE 2) Methods 3) Foundations 4) Explorations and Political and Economic Justice 5) Advanced Topics 6) Honors Thesis (Optional) Honors: Juniors with at least a 3.7 GPA in the major and 3.5 GPA overall are eligible to apply to the PPE Honors program. If approved, these students will enroll in PPE 402, in which they will research and compose an original PPE research project under the direction of a thesis advisor during senior spring, after completing PPE 401. To earn honors, the following criteria must be met (in addition to meeting the requirements for enrollment in PPE 402: 1) A public defense of the project 2) The approval of the project advisor and at least two other PPE faculty who attended the defense 3) Continuing to meet both GPA requirements by the end of senior year Introduction to PPE
Introduction to PPE: PPE 101 (1 course) Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) is a deeply interdisciplinary program of research and teaching that seeks to address some of the most pressing and perennial problems of social, political, and economic life. Contested societal issues-such as those involving poverty, race, and immigration-are not amenable to either purely empirical or normative solutions. To the contrary, to make progress on issues like these-and to understand our own place in the history of ideas and institutions that has led to them-we to bring to bear the tools of political analysis, economic measurement, and moral argument, not in isolation from one another, but in concert. This course introduces students to the major problems, aims, questions, and foundational texts of PPE through a combination of contemporary and historical readings. Recurring topics include competition, the moral limits of markets, racism, distributive justice, and justifications and critiques of property rights, among others. This course also provides grounding in the basics of logical reasoning, including validity, soundness, and logical fallacies. Upon completing the course, students will be prepared to explore the whole breadth of PPE, and they will have taken an important first step towards achieving the interdisciplinary competence required by the PPE major. PPE 101 is designed to work in concert with PPE 102 to prepare students for the rest of the PPE major. PPE 101 aims primarily to introduce students to foundational PPE themes, questions, and texts (although it does include a methodological component in its treatment of logical reasoning), while PPE 102 aims primarily to help students build competence in PPE methods. *PPE 101 must be taken at Davidson College. This class was formerly PHI 190, so credit will not be earned for both PHI 190 and PPE 101. Methods
Methods: PPE 102 (1 course) PPE is a pluralistic academic discipline that attempts to understand and morally evaluate complex social and political phenomena. It is not merely a combination of other disciplines. Rather, it is its own discipline, and it examines political and economic institutions and behaviors with its own combination of methods. The purpose of this course is to help students achieve mastery in PPE methods. To this end, it trains students in the modes of reasoning, analysis, and communication that PPE uses to understand and evaluate economic and political institutions. These are: decision theory, quantitative research, and qualitative research. The course will be divided into three modules (plus an introduction week and two project weeks), with each module focusing on one of these three elements of PPE method. *PPE 102 must be taken at Davidson College Advanced Topics
Advanced Topics in PPE: PPE 401 (1 course) PPE 401: Advanced Topics in PPE is a new course that will be taught for the first time during AY ‘26-‘27. It will be a seminar focused on a PPE topic or problem of the instructor’s choice. Every iteration of PPE 401 will require substantial research and writing by students that will yield no less than twenty pages of graded analytical writing. PPE 401 will require PPE majors to employ skills and frameworks learned earlier in the PPE curriculum. PPE 401 will have the following prerequisites: 1) PPE 101; 2) PPE 102; 3) All four PPE Foundations courses. If there are fewer than 4 students enrolled in PPE 401, the course will convert to an Independent Study taught by the PPE chairperson. Honors Thesis
Honors Thesis in PPE: PPE 402 (1 course) PPE 402 may be completed during the senior year by eligible students as described under Requirements above. |
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