Graduate Philosophy

Student Theses

Since the MA Program in Philosophy began in 1993 almost 200 students have completed their degree. The following list of MA theses is a representative sample that gives some indication of the areas and themes of philosophy investigated by graduate students at Franciscan University.

• Patrick Toner: Aquinas, Zagzebski, and the Levels of Knowledge
• Steven Brust: Law, Morality and the Common Good
• Rebecca Bratten: A Comparison of Nietzsche and Scheler on the Tragic
• Aaron Urbanczyk: The Role of Mind-Contribution in Perception. A Critical Study of John Locke's Distinction between Primary and Secondary Qualities
• Vance Opdyke: Sickness and Consolation. A Kierkegaardian reading of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy
• Teresa Asam: A Room with a Different View. An Inquiry into Feminine Being-in-the-World
• Anthony Flood: Augustine's Notions of Will and Ordo Amoris. Keys to the Ethics of John Duns Scotus and Dietrich von Hildebrand
• Jason Rivers: A Dialectical Comparison of Bonaventure and Hegel on Divine Self-Expression
• John-Michael Muller: Mechanistic Perception and Philosophy. An Evaluation of Hume's Theory of Perception and Phenomenological Examinations of Human Acts of Perceiving
• Sr. M. Regina van den Berg: Obedience in Light of Karol Wojtyla's Personalism
• Nicholas J. Healy: Incommunicability as Gift: A Study in the Philosophical Anthropology of Hans Urs von Balthasar
• Szabolcs Stikker: The Theodicy of G. W. Leibniz
• Irene Marie Lagan: Love and Bonum in Saint Thomas Aquinas
• Joshua Miller: On the Knowledge of Personal Uniqueness
• Mark Spencer: The Value of the Holy and the Trace of God. The Sacramental Experience
• Celeste-Marie Weber Moore: Human Essence. Existential Concerns and Zubiri's Theory of Open Essence
• Stefan Hoffmann: Thomas' Dynamic Notion of Being (esse) and Its Significance for Man and the Many
• Karl Orborn: Abortion and the Personhood of the Fetus. An Ethical Analysis Examining the Philosophical Understanding of Preborn Human Beings
• Scott Henderson: A Philosophical Examination and Evaluation of Some Issues Involving Near-Death Experiences
• Matthew Brounstein: Relational Space and the Theory of Relativity
• Margaret Puyat: Beyond Duty. Virtue Ethics and the Critique of Modern Ethical Theory
• Robert Lee Miller: The Problem of Other Minds in Max Scheler's The Nature of Sympathy
• Kyle Cupp: The Splendor of Mystery. An Analysis of Truth in The Literary Work of Art
• Michael Kleissler: Generosity, a Fundamental Affective Attitude. The Thought of Descartes, Marion and Henry
• Danny Desmond: A Clarification of Hegel's Understanding of History and Ethics. From Hegel to Hegel through Kierkegaard
• Rosemary Fehlner: Justice in the State. Ruling Well and Providing for the Common Good. A Study of Platonic Justice as Contrasted with the Machiavellian Practice of Virtú
• Michael J. Miller: Karol Wojtyla and Karl Marx on Alienation and Self-Creation
• David Klassen: Illusions and the Reality of Natural Law. An Inquiry into Hans Kelsen's Tribunal of Science
• Poul Lundgren: The Principle of Double Effect and Its Critics
• Jesse Russell: Goodnight Sweet Ladies. A Reading of the Nature of Poetic Imagination as a Mode of Knowing within the Poetry of William Butler Yeats and Frederick Nietzsche
• Peter Michael Chukwu: Consciousness and Man's Experience of Subjectivity. A Critical Exposition of Karol Wojtyla's Phenomenology
• Natalie Polzar: Embodiment in Marcel
• Pamela Osborn: The Role of Love in the Life of the Individual Person
• Matthew Barry: Metaphysical and Moral Evil: The Influence of Neoplatonism on Saint Thomas Aquinas
• Andrew Haines: Esse et intelligere et vivere convertunter: Uncovering the Neoplatonic Roots of Thomas Aquinas’ Realist Philosophy
• Joel Potter: Descent, Ascent, and Service: Scheler on the Philosophical Significance of Humility