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Professor Emily Thomas' Outputs (24)

Constance Naden’s Metaphysics: Hylo-Idealism’s Ideal Known World and Unknown Matter (2024)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2024). Constance Naden’s Metaphysics: Hylo-Idealism’s Ideal Known World and Unknown Matter. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 62(3), 475-499

In 1880s Britain, Constance Naden defended “hylo-idealism,” a theory aiming to unify materialism with idealism. This paper offers the first sustained study of Naden’s metaphysical system. On this new reading of Naden’s hylo-idealism, her materialism... Read More about Constance Naden’s Metaphysics: Hylo-Idealism’s Ideal Known World and Unknown Matter.

G E Moore’s Time Realism: Presentism, A-Theory, and the Ghost of Henry Sidgwick (2023)
Journal Article
Thomas, E. (2023). G E Moore’s Time Realism: Presentism, A-Theory, and the Ghost of Henry Sidgwick. Gavin David Young Lectures in Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13772495

The 'new realist' G E Moore is hardly known as a metaphysician of time, yet I argue his 1910-11 lectures, later published as Some Main Problems of Philosophy , offer the first substantial English-language defence of presentism and the A-theory. This... Read More about G E Moore’s Time Realism: Presentism, A-Theory, and the Ghost of Henry Sidgwick.

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.

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.

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.