At Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, MA/MS in Philosophy is offered as a master's degree in Philosophy & Ethics programme. The programme runs for 16 months, delivered on campus. Tuition for international students is CAD 18,024 per year (CAD 9,945 per year for local students).
Dalhousie University's Master of Arts in Philosophy, run by the Department of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in Halifax, is a thesis-based program in which students complete coursework tailored to their interests before undertaking independent research toward a written thesis, defended under the guidance of a faculty supervisor. The program is delivered in person, can be taken full-time or part-time, and has a standard length of 16 months or longer, starting each September. Enrolment is kept deliberately small, typically six to ten MA students at a time, which the department uses to give each student more individualized attention and to allow courses of study to be built around particular philosophical interests rather than a single fixed track. The degree emphasizes the development of critical thinking, close argumentative analysis, and ethical reasoning through sustained engagement with philosophical texts and problems. A large share of graduates continue on to doctoral programs in philosophy in Canada or the United States, while others move into fields such as law, medicine, or diplomacy that draw on the same analytical and reasoning skills. The program suits students with an undergraduate background in philosophy who want focused, closely supervised research experience before pursuing a PhD or a career that rewards rigorous argument and critical thinking.
Requirements
Admission Requirements: Applicants need at least an A- average in their most recent ten full credits. The one-year MA requires a Canadian four-year honours degree in philosophy (or the equivalent); the two-year MA requires an honours or advanced major in a related subject plus a substantial number of core philosophy classes covering major areas such as ethics, theory of knowledge, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. The program is small and selective, typically enrolling six to ten MA students at a time, and requires residency in Halifax; Dalhousie's Department of Philosophy does not support remote graduate education.
Application Details
Start Date:September
Application Deadline:Dalhousie's live Dates and Deadlines page still shows the September 2026 entry cycle as of mid-September 2026, not the 2027 cycle. For that cycle, Bachelor of Science (Nursing), Bachelor of Health Sciences, Bachelor of Science (Medical Sciences) and Bachelor of Social Work close February 15, 2026; the Bachelor of Environmental Design Studies (Architecture) closes March 1, 2026; and the Health Sciences post-diploma option closes June 15, 2026. All other undergraduate programmes are considered on a rolling, space-available basis for both domestic and international applicants, with no separate international closing date published; May 15, 2026 is only the deposit and English-proficiency deadline, not an application deadline. Dalhousie has not yet published September 2027 entry dates. These are institution-wide dates; this programme publishes no deadline of its own.
