Students and Alumni
The Philosophy Graduate Student Union (external link) represents the interest of philosophy graduate students, and organizes many events and activities.
The executive officers for 2024-2025 are:
- Marshall Gillis, President
- Jasmine Frost, Vice President
- Caleb Parfitt, Treasurer
- Emily Kuch, Conference / Speaker Series Coordinator
- Liam Drake, Social Convener
MA Alumni
If you are (or are about to become) a graduate of the MA program in philosophy, please join the TMU Philosophy MA Alumni (external link) Facebook group.
We regularly invite alumni to participate events and activities in the department, and to talk to current students about their career and educational paths.
PhD Placement
The following table lists all MA students who were offered admission into doctoral programs in philosophy (or closely related areas) during or since their time at Ryerson / Toronto Metropolitan University. Student names are omitted for the sake of privacy.
Many of our graduates pursue other opportunities after completing our program. Some go directly into the workforce; others continue their education in other areas.
In recent years, some of our students have gone on to law school or teacher’s college, and others have been accepted into Master's programs in other areas, such as education leadership and policy, environmental studies, political science, public policy and administration, public and international affairs, philanthropy and nonprofit leadership, urban planning, religious studies, bioethics, social work, and clinical, cognitive, and social neuroscience. For a complete list of our graduates, scroll to the bottom of this page.
The doctoral programs listed below are all in philosophy, unless otherwise noted.
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis |
Supervisor | Accepted into Doctoral Programs At |
| Hegel's State and Civil Society in the Modern World |
Ciavatta | Guelph |
| Animated Re-Enchantment of the Calculative World: Animism, Spirit, and Relationality in the Modern World |
Caruana | Institute for Christian Studies |
| How Does the Good Relate to Desire? |
Milona | Ohio State |
| Could Some Evaluative Beliefs be Desires? | D. Hunter | Western |
An Analysis of Metaphysics Γ3 1005b11-18 |
Hennig | Aberdeen, Hawaii |
| Salvaging Conciliationism: An Evaluation of Four Responses to the Self-Defeat Objection to Conciliationism |
Kraay | Arizona State |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor | Accepted into Doctoral Programs at |
|---|---|---|
| What's Free? The Struggle for Liberation out of the Tradition of the Oppressed in Hip-Hop Nation | Schwebel |
York (Social and Political Thought) |
| The Gods as Analogues for Epicurean Friendships | O'Reilly | McGill |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor | Accepted into Doctoral Programs at |
|---|---|---|
| An Argument Towards a Pluralist Conception of Vulnerability in Research Ethics |
Wellington | York McMaster Waterloo |
| Asking the Buddha for Help: Overcoming the Bifurcation and Coloniality of Philosophy Through an Engagement with the Madhyamaka Tradition |
O'Reilly |
Waterloo |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor | Accepted into doctoral program at |
|---|---|---|
| Thinking about "Things": Heidegger's Inquiry into Things |
Ciavatta | University of Ottawa, Western (Theory and Criticism) |
| Nietzsche's Eternal Return as a Transformative Cosmological Teaching |
Panaiotti |
University of Ottawa McMaster |
| Causal Decision Theory: Newcombe's Problem and Backwards Causation |
Sud |
Ryerson (Economics) |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor | Accepted into doctoral program at |
|---|---|---|
| Seeing the Connection: Believing, Inferring, and Understanding |
D. Hunter | University of Toronto, McGill, Purdue |
| Exploring the Transparency of Belief |
D. Hunter | University of Toronto, McGill, Purdue, University of Texas (Austin) |
| Explorations in Trauma and Memory: The Social Dimensions of Trauma |
Schwebel | Carleton (Ethics and Public Affairs) |
| An Examination of Eleonore Stump's Solution to the Problem of Petitionary Prayer |
Kraay | Birmingham (UK) |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor | Accepted into doctoral program at |
|---|---|---|
| Dialectical Disagreement and Homonymy in Aristotle |
Hennig | York, McMaster |
| Divine Silence and Heroic Sacrifice |
Kraay | Oklahoma |
| Public Reason and the Epistemic Turn in Deliberative Democracy |
Murray | Memorial |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor | Accepted into doctoral program at |
|---|---|---|
| Intersubjectivity and the Problem of Analogical Appresentation | Ciavatta | York (Science and Technology Studies) |
| Toward an Interdependent Conception of the Self: Implications for Canadian Policy Reform |
Wellington/Schwebel | Toronto (Political Science) |
| Heidegger and the Messianic | Caruana | McMaster (Religious Studies) |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor | Accepted into doctoral program at |
|---|---|---|
| The Case against Realism: Presence-at-hand at Nature in Heidegger’s Being and Time | Ciavatta | Alberta, Kentucky |
| Speaking the World Into Being: The Nature of Expressive Speech in the Phenomenology of Perception | Maclaren | dePaul, Chicago (Divinity Studies) |
| Philosophy, History, and Progress | Checkland | UC Santa Cruz, McMaster |
| Haptic Conversations: Touch in Medical Care | Schwartz | York (Science and Technology Studies) |
| Incentives, Inequalities, and Self-Authorship: Can Market Democracy Save the Different Principle? | Murray |
Carleton (Political Science, Ethics and Public Affairs), York (Socio-Legal Studies) |
| Worlds Apart: Marx, Marcuse, and Creative Engagement | Schwebel | University of Victoria (Political Science, Environmental Studies), Trent (Cultural Studies), Concordia (Humanities) |
| (En)countering Oppression: An Argument for Self-Skepticism | Murray | UBC |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor | Accepted into doctoral program at |
|---|---|---|
| Thor’s Paralyzing Principle: Defending Rowe’s A Priori Argument for Atheism | Kraay | Baylor, Calgary, UBC, UWO |
| Freedom as Menace: A Phenomenology of the Guilty Person | Maclaren | Guelph, McMaster |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor | Accepted into doctoral program at |
|---|---|---|
| Challenging the ‘Hidden’ Assumption in J.L. Schellenberg’s Hiddenness Argument: An Exploration into the Nature of Divine Love. | Kraay | McMaster |
| Political Ontology in Rawls vs Honneth: The Difference Recognition Makes | Murray | U of T (Political Science) York (Political Science) |
| Merleau-Ponty and Animal being: Intentionality, Temporality, Self and World Articulation | Maclaren | Alberta, Guelph, Memorial University of Newfoundland, York |
| Bayes and Base-Rates: Why a Probabilistic No-Miracles Argument is Successful | Parsons | Western |
| The Puzzle of Assertion | D. Hunter | Oxford (Philosophy) Oxford (Theology) |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor | Accepted into doctoral program at |
|---|---|---|
| Finding Identity Through Trauma | Maclaren / D. Hunter | Guelph |
| Reconciling Freedom and Contingency in Hegel’s Philosophy | Ciavatta | Stony Brook |
| Derrida's Aporetic Ethics and the Urgency of the Impossible | Caruana | DePaul |
| Panpsychism and the Subject Combination Problem | D. Hunter | King’s College, Nottingham |
| Accommodation or Cure: A Synthesis of Neurodiverse and Cure Theory Recommendations for Autism Action | Schwartz | Western, McMaster |
| Collingwood's Philosophy of Art as a Basis for Virtue Aesthetics | Trott | McGill, Southampton |
| Disagreement and the Rationality of Religious Belief | Kraay | Monash, Purdue, McMaster |
| Emotion And Transformation Of Experience | Maclaren | Duquesne, University of New Mexico, Memphis, SIU (Carbondale) |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor | Accepted into doctoral program at |
|---|---|---|
| Reasons to Believe | D. Hunter | Rochester, UMass (Amherst), Syracuse, Toronto, UWO |
| The Phenomenology of Pain as a Shared Experience | Maclaren | Vanderbilt, SUNY Stony Brook, DePaul, Guelph, Emory, Fordham, Memphis, University of New Mexico, SIU Carbondale, Duquesne |
| Psychopaths and Practical Knowledge | D. Hunter | McMaster, York |
| She’s Lost Control: Feminine Bodies and Iris Marion Young’s Communicative Democracy | Schwartz | Guelph |
| Enactive Perception | Maclaren | McGill, Toronto (Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology) |
| The Ability Condition | Murray | UCLA |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor | Accepted into doctoral program at |
|---|---|---|
| Freedom in Sartre and Merleau-Ponty | Ciavatta | Marquette, Memphis, SIU (Carbondale), York |
| The Importance of Considering the Cultivation of Character When Evaluating Moral Dispositions: An Absolutist Argument for Why Aristotle’s Virtuous Man is the Most Admirable | Kornegay | McMaster, Waterloo, York |
| Reconciling Realism and the Strong Programme | Parsons | Birmingham, Toronto (Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology), Oxford. |
| Evaluating the Fales/Gellman Debate on the Epistemic Status of Theistic Mystical Experiences | Kraay | Arkansas, Birmingham, USF (Philosophy), USF (Philosophy and Religion), Wayne State |
| Kingdom of Nature, Kingdom of Ends: Teleology and the ‘Two Standpoints’ in Kant | Murray | Purdue, UWO |
| Learning in Merleau-Ponty | Maclaren | Institute for Christian Studies, OISE (PhD), York |
Research Topics & Supervisors
Below is a list of graduates from our MA program, showing titles of the major research papers / theses, and supervisors. Student names are omitted for the sake of privacy.
| Hegel's State and Civil Society in the Modern World | Ciavatta |
| Animated Re-Enchantment of the Calculative World: Animism, Spirit, and Relationality in the Modern World | Caruana |
| Kristeva's Abjection: An Explanation for the Heightened Disgust Towards Sexual Perversions |
Mulaj |
| Depersonalization as Therapy: An Essay on Buddhist Ethics |
Panaioti |
| How Does the Good Relate to Desire? |
Milona |
| Could Some Evaluative Beliefs be Desires? | D. Hunter |
An Analysis of Metaphysics Γ3 1005b11-18 |
Hennig |
| From Sensory Modules to Conceptual Realms: Traversing the Mind-World Inferface |
Hennig |
| Heidegger, Aristotle, and the Courage to Face Anxiety |
Ciavatta |
| Salvaging Conciliationism: An Evaluation of Four Responses to the Self-Defeat Objection to Conciliationism |
Kraay |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor |
|---|---|
| What's Free? The Struggle for Liberation out of the Tradition of the Oppressed in Hip-Hop Nation |
Schwebel |
| The Justifiability of Ontario's COVID-19 Proof-of-Vaccination Requirement |
Wellington |
| On the Role of Caring in Moral Advice |
D. Hunter |
| Self in Question: An Existential-Phenomenological Account of Social Anxiety Disorder |
Maclaren |
| Non-Naturalism: The Dilemma of Being Immoral or Irrational |
Milona |
| The Human Search for Distraction: Unmasking Meaninglessness and Social Disengagement in the Digital Age |
Enns and Caruana |
| Accepting Entails Interpreting: A Defence of Anti-Reductionism |
Jackson |
| Aristotle, Action, and Addiction |
Hennig |
| Meditations in Bergsonism: Language and Memory |
Ciavatta |
| The Gods as Analogues for Epicurean Friendships |
O'Reilly |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor |
|---|---|
| The Free Will Offence and the Comparability of Worlds |
Kraay |
| Permissivism, Uniqueness, and Higher-Order Evidence |
Kraay |
| Answering the Evil God Challenge |
Kraay |
| Fissures in Time: An Essay on Feverish Existence, Genuine Expression, and Healing |
Maclaren |
| New Language Theory: An Introduction to New Structuralism |
Hennig |
| The Role of Recalcitrance in Emotion Theory |
Milona |
| Knowing How We're Doing |
D. Hunter |
| Nature Seeks to Remain a Mystery: Heidegger on Technology and the Disappearance of Things |
Ciavatta |
| Divine Pronouns |
Jackson |
| An Argument Towards a Pluralistic Conception of Vulnerability in Research Ethics |
Wellington |
| Asking the Buddha for Help: Overcoming the Bifurcation and Coloniality of Philosophy Through an Engagement with the Madhyamaka Tradition |
O'Reilly |
| Re-Thinking Mental Illness: A Phenomenological Understanding of Disordered Experiences |
Maclaren |
| For the Love of Life: A Phenomenological Investigation of the Temporal Dimension of Depression, Resentment, and the Possibility of their Overcoming, Thought through the Philosophy of Frederick Nietzsche | Panaiotti & Ciavatta |
| From Limits to Possibilities: A Study of Existential Transformation Through th Expression of the Ideal-in-the-Real |
Maclaren |
| Transhumanist Ideology and the impoverishment of the Contemporary Human World |
Enns |
| Nature Seeks to Remain a Mystery: Heidegger on Technology and the Disappearance of Things |
Ciavatta |
| Experience of Art through the Lens of Self and Performance |
Ciavatta |
| Reconciling Rawls and Race |
Murray |
| Persuading Desire |
D. Hunter |
| A Philosophical Cure for a Cultural Sickness |
Murray |
| Thinking about "Things": Heidegger's Inquiry into Things |
Ciavatta |
| Causal Decision Theory: Newcombs Problem and Backward Causation |
Sud |
| Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence as a Transformative Cosmological Teaching |
Panaioti |
| Arbitrariness and the Contingency of Belief |
Kraay |
| Constellated - Or Appendixed - ? Exploring Two Accounts of the Subject via Dispositional Realism and Deleuze and Guattari's Ontology of Machines |
MacLaren |
| Ideal Theory and Real Politics | Murray |
| A Neitzschean Account of Flourishment: Drives, Values, and the Significance of Perspectivism | Panaioti |
| Nostalgic Language: A Phenomenology of Expression and Speech in Modern Techno-Capitalism | Enns |
| Psychoanalysis and Subjectivity: The Symbolic Representation of the Abject in Religion and Myth | Caruana |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor |
|---|---|
| Unpossessed Evidence and Steadfastness |
Kraay |
| Cognitive Penetration of Perception and Responsibility |
D. Hunter |
| An Examination of Eleonore Stump’s Solution to the Problem of Petitionary Prayer | Kraay |
| Seeing the Connection: Believing, Inferring, and Understanding |
D. Hunter |
| The Puzzling Case of the Intoxicated Offender |
Wellington |
| Auto: The Ethics of Machine Learning Algorithms and Autonomous Vehicles |
C. MacDonald |
| Rawls' Normative Concept of Legitimacy: Practical Implications for Indigenous Rights |
Murray |
| Encountering Malick's Experimental Film Philosophy: To the Wonder, Knight of Cups, and Post-Secular Cinema |
Caruana |
| Explorations in Trauma and Memory: The Social Dimensions of Trauma |
Schwebel |
| Exploring the Transparency of Belief |
D. Hunter |
| Husserl and Levinas on the Other: A Controversy on Transcendence |
Caruana |
| Freedom, Others, and Temporality: Simone de Beauviour and Morally Free Action |
Maclaren |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor |
|---|---|
| Dialectical Disagreement and Homonymy in Aristotle |
Hennig |
| Merleau-Ponty on Ontological Indeterminacy as the Very Possibility of Ontological Interrogation |
Maclaren |
| Divine Silence and Heroic Sacrifice |
Kraay |
| Making Inwardness Visible: Using Hegel's Account of Art to Make Sense of Modern Painting |
Ciavatta |
| Feminist critiques of Rawlsian Liberal Toleration: Pluralism and Gender Equality | Murray |
| Public Reason and the Epistemic Turn in Deliberative Democracy |
Murray |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor |
|---|---|
| Theory of Mind: A Phenomenological Reconsideration | Maclaren |
| Transcendence, Immanence, and the Escape from Being: Toward a Levinasian Critique of Nietzsche |
Caruana |
| Levinas and the Ethical Turn: A Nietzschian Critique and Response | Caruana |
| The Experience of Home in Chronic Pain and Illness |
Maclaren |
| Heidegger and the Messianic | Caruana |
| The Problem of Promising and Resolving Against the Evidence: A Pragmatic Practical Knowledge Response |
D. Hunter |
| The Place and Purpose of Enhancement |
Schwartz |
| Intersubjectivity and the Problem of Analogical Appresentation | Ciavatta |
| Toward an Interdependent Conception of the Self: Implications for Canadian Policy Reform |
Wellington/Schwebel |
| "The Tears That a Civil Servant Cannot See - The Tears of the Other": Emmanuel Levinas' Political Contributions and the Question of Human Rights |
Murray |
| Beyond Modern Atheism and Theism: Beyond the Limits of the Onto-Theological Conceptions of God and Faith |
Caruana |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor |
|---|---|
The Case against Realism: Presence-at-hand at Nature in Heidegger’s Being and Time. |
Ciavatta |
A Phenomenology of Intersubjective Trust. |
Maclaren |
Kierkegaard Really is a Religious Writer: Caputo’s Foundering of Mystery. |
Caruana |
Creating the Self: The Intersubjective Nature of Experience, Self-Development, and the Phenomenon of Play. |
Maclaren |
Philosophy, History, and Progress |
Checkland |
A Feminist Response to Critiques of Sex Work: Drawing on Lived Experiences. |
Wellington |
The ‘Will’ing Animal: Philosophical Trajectory of the Will in Relation to Nonhuman Animals Through Athur Schopenhauer. |
Trott |
Understanding the Virtual: An Ontogenetic Study. |
Schwebel |
Mind Wars and the Self-Rejecting Individual’s Struggle for Autonomy in an Intersubjective World |
Hennig |
Speaking the World Into Being: The Nature of Expressive Speech in the Phenomenology of Perception. |
Maclaren |
Society and Alienation: Hegel and Marx on Civil Society and the State |
Ciavatta |
Acknowledging Nonhuman Persons: Reconstituting our Conception of Personhood. |
Wellington |
Haptic Conversations: Touch in Medical Care. |
Schwartz |
Incentives, Inequalities, and Self-Authorship: Can Market Democracy Save the Different Principle? |
Murray |
Fiery Spirits and the Temperate Man: The Importance of Hobbes’ Moral Psychology. |
Wellington |
Worlds Apart: Marx, Marcuse, and Creative Engagement |
Schwebel |
(En)countering Oppression: An Argument for Self-Skepticism. |
Murray |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor |
|---|---|
Thor’s Paralyzing Principle: Defending Rowe’s A Priori Argument for Atheism |
Kraay |
Derrida’s Typology: On the Status of a Deconstructive Logic |
Caruana |
The Conclusion of Practical Reasoning |
Hunter, D. |
Spiritual Nomadism: On the Ethical Ideal of the Free Spirit in Human, All too Human |
Schwebel |
On Plato’s Concept of Reason |
Hennig |
Reconceiving Consent in Relation to Pregnancy and Parenting |
Wellington / Schwartz |
Freedom as Menace: A Phenomenology of the Guilty Person |
Maclaren |
An Unlikely Pair of Emmanuels: A Comparative Analysis of Kant’s Moral Philosophy and Levinas’ Ethical Thought |
Caruana |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor |
|---|---|
Towards Global Justice: Access to Medications and the Need for Incentives |
Wellington |
Challenging the ‘Hidden’ Assumption in J.L. Schellenberg’s Hiddenness Argument: An Exploration into the Nature of Divine Love |
Kraay |
Political Ontology in Rawls vs Honneth: The Difference Recognition Makes |
Murray |
Nietzsche and Distance |
Ciavatta |
Political Liberalism and the Potential for Political Equality in Canada |
Murray |
Merleau-Ponty and Animal being: Intentionality, Temporality, Self and World Articulation |
Maclaren |
Bayes and Base-Rates: Why a Probabilistic No-Miracles Argument is Successful |
Parsons |
The Use and Abuse of Laughter for Life |
Caruana |
| The Puzzle of Assertion |
D. Hunter |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor |
|---|---|
Finding Identity Through Trauma |
Maclaren / D. Hunter |
The Open Theistic Multiverse |
Kraay |
Reconciling Freedom and Contingency in Hegel’s Philosophy |
Ciavatta |
Panpsychism and the Subject Combination Problem |
D. Hunter |
Collingwood's Philosophy of Art as a Basis for Virtue Aesthetics |
E. Trott |
Derrida’s Aporetic Ethics and the Urgency of the Impossible |
Caruana |
Accommodation or Cure: A Synthesis of Neurodiverse and Cure Theory Recommendations for Autism Action |
Schwartz |
Disagreement and the Rationality of Religious Belief |
Kraay |
| You’re Not Alone in Trying to Be: An Essay on Subjectivity and Otherness | Caruana |
| Defending the Purpose Theory of Meaning in Life | Kraay |
| Perspective-Centred Relativism and Faultless Disagreement | D. Hunter |
The Encounter with the Stranger: Called to Responsibility |
Caruana |
| Emotion And Transformation Of Experience | Maclaren |
| Heidegger and Levinas: Examining Technology and its Relation to Situatedness | Ciavatta |
| Ridley and Risse on Nietzsche’s “Bad Conscience” as a Feeling of Guilt | Caruana |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor |
|---|---|
Tracking the Liberal Self: Frameworks, Immersion and the Political Individual |
Trott |
Modal Metaphysics and Dogmas of Philosophical Theology: A Response to Almeida |
Kraay |
Reasons to Believe |
D. Hunter |
Psychopaths and Practical Knowledge |
D. Hunter |
The Phenomenology of Pain as a Shared Experience |
Maclaren |
Reconceiving Consent in Relation to Pregnancy and Parenting |
Maclaren |
A Phenomenological Analysis of a Case of Suicide |
Maclaren |
She’s Lost Control: Feminine Bodies and Iris Marion Young’s Communicative Democracy |
Schwartz |
| Enactive Perception | Maclaren |
| Learning Language and Becoming Ethical: A Phenomenological Account | Maclaren |
| The Ability Condition | Murray |
| Nietzsche’s Theory of Virtue: An Ethics Rooted in Health | Rondel |
| Two-Way Powers and the Attribution of Agency | D. Hunter |
| Title of Major Research Paper / Thesis | Supervisor |
|---|---|
Freedom in Sartre and Merleau-Ponty |
Ciavatta |
The Importance of Considering the Cultivation of Character When Evaluating Moral Dispositions: An Absolutist Argument for Why Aristotle’s Virtuous Man is the Most Admirable |
Kornegay |
Reconciling Realism and the Strong Programme |
Parsons |
Being Called to Respond: A Study Into the Dangers of Viewing Evil Merely as a Form of Radical Alteriety |
Caruana |
Evaluating the Fales/Gellman Debate on the Epistemic Status of Theistic Mystical Experiences |
Kraay |
Can We Live with Cohabitation? An Analysis of the Commonsense View of Identity and ‘Ordinary Concern’ |
D. Hunter |
Kingdom of Nature, Kingdom of Ends: Teleology and the ‘Two Standpoints’ in Kant |
Murray |
Learning in Merleau-Ponty |
Maclaren |
| Existential Freedom, Oppression and Authenticity: Making Authentic Choices in an Oppressive Society. | Maclaren |