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Outputs (39)

Metaphysical Idealists in Britain: Constance Naden, Victoria Welby, and Arabella Buckley (2023)
Book Chapter
Thomas, E. (2023). Metaphysical Idealists in Britain: Constance Naden, Victoria Welby, and Arabella Buckley. In A. Stone, & L. Moland (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of American and British Women Philosophers in the Nineteenth Century (C34S1–C34N22). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197558898.013.34

Idealists agree that reality is somehow mental, holding say that reality comprises consciousness or spirit. Idealism can be developed in many different ways and, before the distinctive movement known as “British idealism” emerged, other idealisms wer... Read More about Metaphysical Idealists in Britain: Constance Naden, Victoria Welby, and Arabella Buckley.

The Specious Present in English Philosophy 1749-1785: On David Hartley, Joseph Priestley, Abraham Tucker, and William Watson (2023)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2023). The Specious Present in English Philosophy 1749-1785: On David Hartley, Joseph Priestley, Abraham Tucker, and William Watson. Philosophers' Imprint, 23(1), https://doi.org/10.3998/phimp.1281

Drawing on the 1870s-1880s work of Shadworth Hodgson and Robert Kelly, William James famously characterised the specious present as ‘the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible’. Literature on the pre-history of late ninet... Read More about The Specious Present in English Philosophy 1749-1785: On David Hartley, Joseph Priestley, Abraham Tucker, and William Watson.

Victoria Welby (2023)
Book
Thomas, E. (2023). Victoria Welby. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009345897

In 1880s Britain, Victoria Welby (1837–1912) began creating a rich, wide-ranging metaphysical system. At its heart lies Motion, 'the great fact, the supreme category'. Drawing extensively on archive materials, this Element offers the first study of W... Read More about Victoria Welby.

The Obsession with Time in 1880s-1930s American-British Philosophy (2023)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2023). The Obsession with Time in 1880s-1930s American-British Philosophy. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 31(2), 149-160. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2022.2093157

In American-British philosophy around the turn of the twentieth century, every philosopher and their dog had something to say on time. Thinkers worried about our experience of time: Do we actually experience time? How do we experience the present? Is... Read More about The Obsession with Time in 1880s-1930s American-British Philosophy.

The Philosophy of Joseph Priestley’s 1765 Timeline: Abstract Ideas, Time, and Human Progress (2023)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2023). The Philosophy of Joseph Priestley’s 1765 Timeline: Abstract Ideas, Time, and Human Progress. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 40(1), 25-58. https://doi.org/10.5406/21521026.40.1.03

In 1765, Joseph Priestley created what may be the world's first modern timeline, A Chart of Biography. This paper offers the first study of the philosophy underlying Priestley's timeline. It argues that Priestley was pushed towards representing times... Read More about The Philosophy of Joseph Priestley’s 1765 Timeline: Abstract Ideas, Time, and Human Progress.

Mary Calkins, Victoria Welby, and the spatialization of time (2022)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2023). Mary Calkins, Victoria Welby, and the spatialization of time. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 31(2), 205-230. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2022.2123780

This paper explores a trans-Atlantic clash about time: in 1899, American philosopher Mary Calkins argued we should not spatialize time; in 1899, British philosopher Victoria Welby argued we should. I take their disagreement as a starting point to con... Read More about Mary Calkins, Victoria Welby, and the spatialization of time.

Space and its Relationship to God (2022)
Book Chapter
Janiak, A., & Thomas, E. (2022). Space and its Relationship to God. In D. Miller, & D. Jalobeanu (Eds.), The Cambridge History of Philosophy of the Scientific Revolution (424-438). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108333108.025

During the Scientific Revolution, philosophers wondered how best to understand space. Many debates revolved around the account advanced in Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy (1644), and this chapter treats it as a focal point. Descartes argued for... Read More about Space and its Relationship to God.

Locke, Newton, and Edmund Law (2021)
Book Chapter
Thomas, E. (2021). Locke, Newton, and Edmund Law. In J. Gordon-Roth, & S. Weinberg (Eds.), The Lockean Mind. Routledge

Time through time: its evolution through western philosophy in seven ideas (2021)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2021). Time through time: its evolution through western philosophy in seven ideas. Think, 20(58), 23-38. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1477175621000038

What is time? Just like everything else in the world, our understanding of time has changed continually over time. This article tracks this question through the history of Western philosophy and looks at major answers from the likes of Aristotle, Kan... Read More about Time through time: its evolution through western philosophy in seven ideas.

Time and Subtle Pictures in the History of Philosophy (2020)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2020). Time and Subtle Pictures in the History of Philosophy. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 120(2), 97-121. https://doi.org/10.1093/arisoc/aoaa007

For centuries, philosophers of time have produced texts containing words and pictures. Although some historians study visual representations of time, I have not found any history of philosophy on pictures of time within texts. This paper argues that... Read More about Time and Subtle Pictures in the History of Philosophy.

Anne Conway as a Priority Monist: A Reply to Gordon-Roth (2020)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2020). Anne Conway as a Priority Monist: A Reply to Gordon-Roth. Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 6(3), 275-284. https://doi.org/10.1017/apa.2019.1

For early modern metaphysician Anne Conway, the world comprises creatures. In some sense, Conway is a monist about creatures: all creatures are one. Yet, as Jessica Gordon-Roth (2018) has astutely pointed out, that monism can be understood in very di... Read More about Anne Conway as a Priority Monist: A Reply to Gordon-Roth.

The Idealism and Pantheism of May Sinclair (2019)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2019). The Idealism and Pantheism of May Sinclair. Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 5(2), 137-157. https://doi.org/10.1017/apa.2018.45

During the early twentieth century, British novelist and philosopher May Sinclair published two book-length defenses of idealism. Although Sinclair is well known to literary scholars, she is little known to the history of philosophy. This paper provi... Read More about The Idealism and Pantheism of May Sinclair.

The Roots of C. D. Broad’s Growing Block Theory of Time (2017)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2019). The Roots of C. D. Broad’s Growing Block Theory of Time. Mind, 128(510), 527-549. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzx020

The growing block view of time holds that the past and present are real whilst the future is unreal; as future events become present and real, they are added on to the growing block of reality. Surprisingly, given the recent interest in this view, th... Read More about The Roots of C. D. Broad’s Growing Block Theory of Time.

Time, Space, and Process in Anne Conway (2017)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2017). Time, Space, and Process in Anne Conway. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 25(5), 990-1010. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2017.1302408

Many scholars have drawn attention to the way that elements of Anne Conway’s system anticipate ideas found in Leibniz. This paper explores the relationship between Conway and Leibniz’s work with regard to time, space, and process. It argues – against... Read More about Time, Space, and Process in Anne Conway.

On the “Evolution” of Locke’s Space and Time Metaphysics (2016)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2016). On the “Evolution” of Locke’s Space and Time Metaphysics. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 33(4), 305-325

There is a near-consensus in the literature that John Locke's metaphysics of space and time undergo a radical evolution: in the 1670s, Locke holds relationism; by the first, 1690 edition of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he has adopted... Read More about On the “Evolution” of Locke’s Space and Time Metaphysics.

In Defense of Real Cartesian Motion (2015)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2015). In Defense of Real Cartesian Motion. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 53(4), 747-762. https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.2015.0067

On Thomas Lennon’s (2007) “Eleatic” reading of Descartes, the Cartesian world is in reality motionless, its motions conceived as mere phenomenal appearances. Lennon is aware that this radical reading appears to be at odds with various Cartesian texts... Read More about In Defense of Real Cartesian Motion.

Henry More and the development of absolute time (2015)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2015). Henry More and the development of absolute time. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 54, 11-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2015.06.003

This paper explores the nature, development and influence of the first English account of absolute time, put forward in the mid-seventeenth century by the ‘Cambridge Platonist’ Henry More. Against claims in the literature that More does not have an a... Read More about Henry More and the development of absolute time.

Hilda Oakeley on Idealism, History and the Real Past (2015)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2015). Hilda Oakeley on Idealism, History and the Real Past. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 23(5), 933-953. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2015.1055232

In the early twentieth century, Hilda Diana Oakeley (1867–1950) set out a new kind of British idealism. Oakeley is an idealist in the sense that she holds mind to actively contribute to the features of experience, but she also accepts that there is a... Read More about Hilda Oakeley on Idealism, History and the Real Past.

British Idealist Monadologies and the Reality of Time: Hilda Oakeley Against McTaggart, Leibniz, and Others (2015)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2015). British Idealist Monadologies and the Reality of Time: Hilda Oakeley Against McTaggart, Leibniz, and Others. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 23(6), 1150-1168. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2015.1059314

In the early twentieth century, a rare strain of British idealism emerged which took Leibniz's Monadology as its starting point. This paper discusses a variant of that strain, offered by Hilda Oakeley (1867–1950). I set Oakeley's monadology in its ph... Read More about British Idealist Monadologies and the Reality of Time: Hilda Oakeley Against McTaggart, Leibniz, and Others.

Catharine Cockburn on Unthinking Immaterial Substance: Souls, Space, and Related Matters (2015)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2015). Catharine Cockburn on Unthinking Immaterial Substance: Souls, Space, and Related Matters. Philosophy Compass, 10(4), 255-263. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12210

The early modern Catharine Cockburn wrote on a wide range of philosophical issues and recent years have seen an increasing interest in her work. This paper explores her thesis that immaterial substance need not think. Drawing on existing scholarship,... Read More about Catharine Cockburn on Unthinking Immaterial Substance: Souls, Space, and Related Matters.

Catharine Cockburn on Substantival Space (2013)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2013). Catharine Cockburn on Substantival Space. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 30(3), 195-214

In the early eighteenth century, the English philosopher Catharine Trotter Cockburn (1679–1749) put forward an extremely unusual account of space. The originality of her account is best appreciated by contrasting it with others of the period; to this... Read More about Catharine Cockburn on Substantival Space.

Baking with Kant and Bradley (2013)
Journal Article
Thomas, E., & Leech, J. (2013). Baking with Kant and Bradley. Collingwood and British Idealism Studies, 19(1), 75-94

This paper compares the views of Kant and F.H. Bradley on the nature of judgment or experience. We argue that, while there are many differences between their idealist systems, Kant and Bradley agree on a basic issue: there is a sense in which a whole... Read More about Baking with Kant and Bradley.

Space, Time, and Samuel Alexander (2012)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2013). Space, Time, and Samuel Alexander. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 21(3), 549-569. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2012.734776

Super-substantivalism is the thesis that space is identical to matter; it is currently under discussion – see Sklar (1977, 221–4), Earman (1989, 115–6) and Schaffer (2009) – in contemporary philosophy of physics and metaphysics. Given this current in... Read More about Space, Time, and Samuel Alexander.

Cavendish, Conway, and Cockburn on Matter
Book Chapter
Thomas, E. Cavendish, Conway, and Cockburn on Matter. In K. Detlefsen, & L. Shapiro (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Women and Early Modern European Philosophy. Routledge