The Department of dialectical and historical materialism was created in 1957 at the Lviv Polytechnic National University, in 1967 the department was renamed as the Department of Philosophy. In Soviet time department developed the principles of ideological direction regarding teaching of the academic courses in the technical university and carried out several publications concerning this topic.
In spite of an ideological burden, sufficiently wide range of philosophical disciplines has been taught on the department and also there was Students’ Philosophical Club. The department noticeably changed the direction of its activity after the formation of the Ukrainian Independent State.
Original philosophical courses were created at the initial stage of the department’s operating. Such courses provided free student’s choice concerning both -groups, where they had to listen to the philosophical lectures and orientation of the philosophical course.
For the first time in Ukraine, department has developed project «Philosophy of science and technology» for the master’s level training. Associate Professor Petrushenko V. L. reported about project’s special features and content at the
Research and Practice Seminar of the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science in Kharkiv in 1996. Postgraduate study majoring in «dialectics and methodology of cognition» has been established on the department in 2002.
Since 2017 – Head of the Chair of Philosophy is Doctor of Sciences in Philosophy, Associate Professor Ihor Karivets. In the Chair of Philosophy there are three Doctors of Sciences in Philosophy, two Professors, nine Associate Professors, one Senior Lecturer, and one Assistant.
Since 2002 teachers of the department have created and published 11 educative handbooks (one of them has been certified as textbook), 8 on them have been approved by Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.
In 2015 the Chair of Philosophy with the cooperation of the Chair of Political Sciences and International Relations established the scientific journal “Humanitarian Vision”. Also the journal “Philosophical Researches” is annually published. The new scientific topic of research is “A Human Dimensions of Contemporary Socio-Cultural Process: Global and Local Context” (2017-2020). Кафедральна наукова тема "Людські виміри сучасного соціокультурного процесу: глобальний та локальний контекст" (2017-2020). State registration number 0117U004468.