The creation of the Graduate Program in Philosophy at the Federal University of São Paulo (PPGF-Unifesp) dates back to the foundation, in 2007, of the School of Philosophy, Languages and Human Sciences (EFLCH) at the Unifesp, located in the city of Guarulhos, in the metropolitan region of São Paulo. EFLCH is currently formed by six departments: Philosophy, Language and Literature Studies, Social Sciences, History, History of Art and Education. The PPGF-Unifesp was created by the Department of Philosophy in 2010, with the opening of the Master's Programme, and expanded in 2013, the year of the beginning of the activities of the Doctoral Programme. Master’s and Doctoral Programmes work in an integrated manner, sharing research areas, disciplines, regulations and faculty.

The Program expanded to the Graduate level the conceptional guidelines of the Philosophy Department at Unifesp. Conceived in the context of the expansion of the public university in the first decade of this century, Department and Graduate Program emerged from the diagnosis that there was a growing demand for teaching and research in Philosophy in the metropolitan region of São Paulo. With 38 full-time faculty members the Department was founded during the expansion of Graduate Studies in Philosophy in Brazil, which was particularly benefited by a tradition of research in History of Philosophy. This same tradition made possible, in turn, a daring project to promote by thematic surveys the interdisciplinary connection of philosophy with the sciences and the arts. For this reason, the Department created conditions for teaching and research in some areas relatively unexplored in the country, such as the Philosophy of Psychoanalysis, Contemporary Aesthetics, Philosophy of the Renaissance, Philosophy of Biology, Philosophy of Technology, Philosophy of Mathematics and the History of Medieval Jewish, Islamic and Oriental Philosophy.

The PPGF-Unifesp offers four main research areas: 1) Metaphysics, Sciences and Language; 2) Subjectivity, Art and Culture; 3) Politics, Knowledge and Society; 4) History of Philosophy. Such feature seeks to combine the History of Philosophy research with thematic approaches to contemporary issues from the most diverse theoretical fields. The Program not only presents an institutional design for specialized, innovative and interdisciplinary research, but also, through the link with undergraduate studies, makes the inseparability of teaching and research a daily university experience.

With more than 20 full-time faculty members the PPGF-Unifesp managed to cope with an increasing demand in Greater São Paulo for graduate studies in Philosophy. In fact, the PPGF-Unifesp was the first Graduate Program based at a public university in this region since the Graduate Program in Philosophy at the University of São Paulo. In the last years, the PPGF-Unifesp has attracted an increasing number of students and researchs. Offering annually 20 places for master’s degree and another 20 for the doctorate, the Graduate Program recorded in the last four years an average of 4-5 applications per place. Since its creation, PPGF-Unifesp has produced more than 140 master’s dissertations and 50 doctoral thesis. In this context of consolidation and expansion, the Program has also experienced an increasing international reach with “cotutela” arrangements with universities abroad and foreign postdoctoral researchers.

The PPGF-Unifesp is connected to a national and international graduate research network, contributing to a diversified and consolidated tradition of philosophical teaching and research in Brazil, due to very favorable conditions: full-time leading scholars; institutional support of a research university such as Unifesp; and a privileged geographical location with close links to the main universities in the city of São Paulo (USP and PUC / SP), in the nearby countryside (UNICAMP and UFSCar), as well as to a promising recent university in the metropolitan region of São Paulo (UFABC ). These are conditions that enable the PPGF-Unifesp to develop its teaching and research activities with national and international reach.