Current Graduate Students

The Department of Philosophy at the University of Lethbridge has a small Master’s program. Students that are admitted to our program can expect to get the full support of their supervisors as well as the rest of the department. As a small graduate program, we take the success of every student seriously. For this reason, we are careful in selecting our graduate students and take pride in fully integrating them in department life.

Jodi Newman

Philosophical Interests: Political Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy, Social Philosophy, Moral Philosophy and Ethics, Philosophy of Language,

Thesis topic: Media, Identity, and Justice

Why I love philosophy: I love philosophy because it allows us to work through and answer questions we have about our world, the universe(s), our experiences, and ourselves. It allows us to study of the fundamental who’s, what’s, why’s, when’s, where’s and how’s of just about anything. Philosophy allows our passion for knowledge and understanding to develop, to be challenged, and to flourish. I love philosophy because it is limitless.

Thiago Ladeira

Philosophical Interests: Philosophy of mathematics, metalogic, logic, philosophy of science

Thesis topic: Wittgenstein’s formalistic philosophy of mathematics and the dispensability of mathematical entities – Wittgenstein; Philosophy of Mathematics; Indispensability Thesis

Why I love philosophy: I think what I love about philosophy is the freedom that it granted me. One might think that this is nonsense, philosophy can only provide despair and misery to those who adventure in questioning everything. However, the first lesson that I learned was from a very famous guy that told us that he was probably the smarter person of his time because he knew that he knew nothing. True knowledge is to know our own limitations, is to know that we can only grasp so few things that the world can give to us. True knowledge is not the ability to talk about anything, it is our choice to remain in silence about things that we do not know.

Philosophy showed me what true freedom is by teaching me how to use three simple words: I don’t know. What I learned is that one can only find freedom when he gives away the desire to be right.

Michaela Thompson

Philosophical Interests: Metaphysics; Feminist philosophy; Bioethics

(Working) Thesis title: “A critical analysis of the spectrum view of sex: Intersex as a case study” 

Why I love philosophy: Philosophy has no subject matter, but instead is a way of doing things. The fact that you can be doing philosophy to just about anything is appealing. Philosophical analysis has changed the way I approach everything, from important aspects of my job to the way I phrase answers to seemingly mundane questions. I love what doing philosophy does for us; carefully analyzing concepts we take for granted informs how we conduct our lives, policies, and practices. It has also made me overthink this question.