Natalie Martin is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Toronto. Her primary interests are in the philosophy of medicine, moral philosophy, and feminist philosophy. She currently splits her time between Toronto and St. John’s, Newfoundland.
What excites you about philosophy?
There are so many things that excite me about philosophy. First, studying philosophy has given me the tools to articulate and explore the questions that plague me. Teaching philosophy excites me because it gives me the opportunity to share these tools with others. In my opinion, the most exciting thing about philosophy is the chance to explore the minds of others and share with them my thoughts. Through studying philosophy, I’ve been lucky enough to find a group of people who both challenge me and try to understand me.
What are you working on right now?
At this moment, I’m working on crafting my dissertation prospectus exploring the topic of prognosis. Whereas diagnosis focuses on identifying illnesses, prognosis offers an estimated outcome of a given diagnosis. This estimate might be cashed out in quality-of-life judgments or judgments about a patient’s time-to-death. A patient’s prognosis informs many important things – the course of their treatment, the care they will receive, their expectations about their future, and so on. I’m particularly interested in how physician or patient values might inform prognostication in ways that are not immediately obvious to us. At this stage, I’m working to pull out the questions that I think are the most important and thinking about how they might fit together in the larger project.
If you could wake up tomorrow with a new talent, what would you most like it to be?
The ability to speak and understand any language.
What do you consider your greatest accomplishment?
Being the kind of person that people can rely on. My community of family and friends is the most important thing to me, and knowing that they feel like they can come to me in their time of need makes me feel more accomplished than any title could.
What is your favorite sound in the world?
The sound of a fog horn. I’m from a coastal city that has more foggy days than sunny ones. The fog horn brings me back there, even when I’m far away.
What do you like to do outside work?
Outside of work, I spend as much time as possible creating art that captures the beauty of nature. When I was young, my mother was an avid gardener. As a child, I couldn’t fully appreciate her work. Now that I’ve grown up, we spend time in the summer walking through her garden, smelling the flowers, and enjoying each other’s company. I admire her dedication to creating something beautiful and try to embody it in my art.
What’s your poison?
Usually, club soda with lime. A gluten-free craft beer if I’m feeling fancy.
What’s your top tip or advice for APA members reading this?
Here is the best advice I’ve ever been given: others will do the work of criticizing you and you should leave it to them. Being hyper-critical of my work is one of the things that held me back for a long time. At the end of the day, putting something out into the world is hard. But doing hard things is good for us, and gives us the opportunity to grow. If you never give yourself that chance because of your fear of criticism, you lose a lot more than you gain.
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form to nominate yourself or a friend
Alexis LaBar has a Master’s degree in Philosophy from West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Before attending West Chester, she graduated from Moravian University with a Bachelor’s in Philosophy, a minor in Global Religions, and an Ethics certificate. She is the recipient of the 2022 Claghorn Award in Philosophy, awarded by West Chester University, and the 2021 Douglas Anderson Prize in Philosophy, awarded by Moravian University. She is the Editor of the Teaching Beat and Work/Life Balance Beat.
I am doing work on the relation between philosophy and liberal arts. My third book is Unified Philosophy: Interdisciplinary Metaphysics, Ethics, and Liberal Arts, 3rd edition. I unify several branches of philosophy.