Sam Alma

Sam Alma recently started the joint Research Master’s in Philosophy at the University of Groningen and Radboud University Nijmegen. A remarkable but well-reasoned choice, as he hopes that this will allow him to learn as much as possible about his passion: early modern philosophy. Starting broadly and following up in depth characterizes Sam’s approach. He started his Bachelor’s degree programme in History in Groningen, but, as he writes, when he came to choose an extra subject, he lighted on Philosophy, in which he quickly became intrigued by the history of philosophy, especially in the Middle Ages and early modern period. He therefore decided also to follow a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy. He is especially interested in the metaphysical, natural philosophy, and the linguistic approach to problems. An example of this is discussed in his thesis on Thomas Hobbes’ approach to the puzzle of the Ship of Theseus. Sam’s supervisor was very enthusiastic about this thesis and the ideas developed in it were included in a joint scientific publication. In addition to completing his Bachelor’s degree in History and beginning his abovementioned Research Master’s programme, Sam has also started studying Russian at the University of Amsterdam. Sam seems to manage to keep many educational and other balls up in the air. In addition to his studies, Sam is also active in other important areas. He has been, for example, a teaching assistant for many different course units. This suits him well and he does it with great pleasure. He is now involved in organizing a joint Groningen-Nijmegen philosophy conference and, as part of his studies, he aims to gain international experience in Toronto and Rome. Sam made a good pitch in which he not only asked philosophical questions, but also elaborated on them and tried to answer them. Reflecting Sam’s T-shaped approach, this pitch had both breadth and depth. And, as difficult as this is sometimes to combine, Sam did this convincingly in the three minutes that a pitch is allowed to last.