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Tom Stoneham

MA (Oxon) M.Phil, Ph.D. (London)

Previous posts include Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy, Merton College Oxford. Visiting posts at Rhodes University, South Africa and School of Advanced Studies, London.

Research interests

Cognition (Consciousness, Self-knowledge, Perception, Memory), Idealism in the Early Modern period

Current research projects

I am in the early stages of writing a book about consciousness. My view is that perception is the paradigm case of consciousness, but that perceiving does not involve a mental state. So the phenomenal character of consciousness is perception is not determined by phenomenal or representational properties of some mental state but the properties of the 'external' objects of perception. But in imaginings and dreamings there are no such objects, so I deny that these are conscious experiences: rather they are a special kind of thought about possible conscious experiences.

I am still writing quite a lot about Berkeley, with papers in draft on his account of imagination, on the concept of agency and the 'blind agent', and on the perception of shadows. The next will be on his nominalism for a major historical project on universals sponsored by the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa.

I also have an interest in some more minor British philosophers of the early modern period, especially Arthur Collier (Clavis Universalis, 1713), Richard Burthogge (Organum Vetus et Novum, 1678) and Herbert of Cherbury (De Veritate, 1624).

Stemming in part from various curious passages I have come across in early modern philosophical texts, passages which made me realize that mirrors can be and have been conceived of rather differently from how we think of them now, I am putting together an inter-disciplinary research project on 'Mirrors: Materials, Metaphors and Models' with colleagues from English, History of Art, Archaeology and Psychology.

Editorial Work

Associate Editor of Mind; News Editor of the Berkeley Newsletter

Teaching

Undergraduate modules include: Early Modern Philosophy, Intermediate Logic, Epistemology, Twin Earth, Atheism and Scepticism.

MA module: Metaphysics and Epistemology (PDF).

Current Ph.D. Students: Richard Flockemann, Ro Smith, Louise Moody, Nick Beech

Selected Publications

1. Stoneham, T. 2002: Berkeley’s World: An Examination of the Three Dialogues. Oxford: OUP.
2. Stoneham, T. 2003: 'Temporal Externalism'. Philosophical Papers, 32, pp. 97-107.
3. Stoneham, T. 2003: 'On Equivocation'. Philosophy, 78, pp. 515-9.
4. Stoneham, T. 2004: 'Self-Knowledge'. Handbook of Epistemology, eds. I.Niiniluoto, J.Wolenski, M.Sintonen, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, pp. 647-72.
5. Efird, D. & Stoneham, T. 2005: 'The Subtraction Argument for Metaphysical Nihilism'. Journal of Philosophy, 102, pp. 303-25.
6. Efird, D. & Stoneham, T. 2006: 'Combinatorialism and the Possibility of Nothing'. Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
7. Stoneham, T. 2006: 'Berkeley's "esse is percipi" and Collier's "simple" argument'. History of Philosophy Quarterly, pp.211-24.
8. Stoneham, T. 2008: 'A Neglected Account of Perception'. Dialectica, 307-22.
9. Stoneham, T. 2009: 'Time and Truth: The Presentism-Eternalism Debate'. Philosophy, 201-18.

Selected Work in Progress

1. 'Perceiving, Imagining and Dreaming'
2. 'Catching Berkeley's Shadow'
3. 'Berkeley on Action and Blind Agents'

Administration

Head of Department; University Council; Chair of e-Accessibility Forum; Strategic Information Projects Implementation Group; Physics/Philosophy and Maths/Philosophy Executive Committees; Research Information Network.

Last Updated: August 13, 2009 | mab

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