Let k be a commutative Noetherian ring. In this paper we consider filtered modules of the category FI firstly introduced by Nagpal. We show that a finitely generated FI-module V is filtered if and only if its higher homologies all vanish, and if and only if a certain homology vanishes. Using this homological characterization, we characterize finitely generated FI-modules V whose projective dimension is finite, and describe an upper bound for it. Furthermore, we give a new proof for the fact that V induces a finite complex of filtered modules, and use it as well as a result of Church and Ellenberg to obtain another upper bound for homological degrees of V.