Simon Prosser

News from Arché

• Research Grant Success: Dr Simon Prosser (26th March 2023)

Research

My research interests are mainly in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of perception, though I also have interests in certain areas of metaphysics. The topics that I am most interested in are listed below. I am best able to supervise doctoral research in areas 1-4 (though I can also supervise work on a few related topics):

1. Conscious experience - I am particularly interested in work on conscious experience that connects with the philosophy of perception, including issues that are significant for the metaphysics of consciousness, as well as a variety of issues relating to specific types of experience (e.g. experience of space, time, colour, pain, etc.) I am in the late stages of writing a book on conscious experience, provisionally entitled The Perspective of Consciousness. In it, I defend the view that (i) properties are perceived perspectivally; (ii) it is the perspective, not the perceived property itself, that determines the phenomenal character of the experience; (iii) because they are perspectival, all conscious experiences are also egocentric, and (iv) the egocentricity of conscious experience explains the lack of a priori entailments from physical to phenomenal concepts, thus defeating anti-materialist arguments such as the knowledge argument and the conceivability argument. The resulting view allows a defence of 'narrow' physicalism compatible with the supervenience of the mental on internal facts about the subject, and sheds light on several other issues such as the role of conscious experience in action.
2. Temporal thought and experience - I am interested in all aspects of current philosophical work on temporal thought and experience, including, but not limited to, connections with the metaphysics of time.
3. Egocentric thought and experience - I have written about 'essential indexicals', the problem of cognitive dynamics, shared indexical/egocentric thoughts, and immunity to error through misidentification. The first-person perspective is important in much of my current work.
4. The nature of concepts/modes of presentation/mental files - I wrote my PhD thesis on this topic, and have recently returned to it in a few articles.
5. Emergent properties and 'new Zeno' phenomena - This is a minor interest that started from a light-hearted article on 'new Zeno' phenomena, but led to more serious work on emergence and downward causation.

Published Work

You can listen to a public lecture that I gave at the Institute of Advanced Study in Durham ('Does Time Really Pass?') here, and a talk that I gave to the Aristotelian Society ('Why are Indexicals Essential?") here. You can also read my recent entry in the OUP blog.

See also my pages at Philpapers

Books

• Experiencing Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. [Book symposium in Inquiry]

• Simon Prosser and François Recanati (eds.) Immunity to Error Through Misidentification: New Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

 Articles, chapters etc.

• Shared Egocentric Thoughts. In José Luis Bermúdez, Victor Verdejo, and Matheus Valente (eds.) Sharing Thoughts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

• Tense and Emotion. In K. M. Jaszczolt (ed.) Understanding Human Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023: 11-29.

• Commentary: Physical Time within Human Time, Frontiers in Psychology (Sec. Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology), 14 (2023). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1096592. Commentary on R. Gruber, R. A. Block and C. Montemayor 'Physical Time within Human Time', and D. Buonomano and C. Rovelli, 'Bridging the Neuroscience and Physics of Time'.

• The Metaphysics of Mental Files. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 100 (2020): 657-676. [Draft]

• Locating the Contradiction in Our Understanding of Time. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 42 (2019). Commentary on Christoph Hoerl and Teresa McCormack, 'Thinking in and About Time: A Dual Systems Perspective on Temporal Cognition' Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 42 (2019). [Published Paper]

• Shared Modes of Presentation. Mind & Language, 34 (2019): 465-482. [Draft]

• Replies to Deng, Lee, and Skow. Inquiry, 61 (2018): 328-350. (Contribution to a book symposium on my book Experiencing Time.) [Draft]

• Rethinking the Specious Present. In Ian Phillips (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Temporal Experience. London: Routledge, 2017: 146-156. [Draft]

• Why are Indexicals Essential? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 115 (2015): 211-233. [Draft, Podcast]

• Is There a ‘Specious Present’? Insights (E-Journal of Durham Institute of Advanced Study, ISSN 1756-2074), 6 (2013). [Published Paper]

• Experience, Thought, and the Metaphysics of Time. In K. M. Jaszczolt and L. de Saussure (eds.), Time: Language, Cognition, and Reality. Oxford Studies of Time in Language and Thought, volume 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013: 157-174. [Draft]

• The Passage of Time. In Heather Dyke and Adrian Bardon (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Time. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013: 315-327. [Draft]

• Passage and Perception. Noûs, 47 (2013): 69-84. [Draft]

• Emergent Causation. Philosophical Studies, 159 (2012): 21-39. [Draft]

• Why Does Time Seem to Pass? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 85 (2012): 92-116. [Draft]

• Sources of Immunity to Error Through Misidentification. In S. Prosser and F. Recanati (eds.) Immunity to Error Through Misidentification: New Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012: 158-179. [Draft]

• Affordances and Phenomenal Character in Spatial Perception. The Philosophical Review, 120.4 (2011): 475-513. [Draft]

• Zeno Objects and Supervenience. Analysis, 69 (2009): 18-26. [Draft]

• The Two-Dimensional Content of Consciousness. Philosophical Studies, 136 (2007): 319-349. [Draft]

• Could We Experience the Passage of Time? Ratio, 20.1 (2007): 75-90. Reprinted in L. Nathan Oaklander (ed.), Philosophy of Time: Critical Concepts in Philosophy. New York/London: Routledge, 2008. [Draft]

• The Eleatic Non-Stick Frying Pan. Analysis, 66 (2006): 187-194. [Draft]

• Temporal Metaphysics in Z-Land. Synthese, 149 (2006): 77-96. [Draft]

• Cognitive Dynamics and Indexicals. Mind & Language, 20 (2005): 369-391. [Draft]

• A New Problem for the A-Theory of Time. The Philosophical Quarterly, 50 (2000): 494-498. [Draft]

Biography

I joined the department in 2002 after completing my PhD at the University of Warwick. I originally studied physics at the University of Birmingham then changed direction and studied philosophy at Warwick. During my doctoral studies I also spent one year at CREA, Paris (CNRS/École Polytechnique).

When I have some spare time, I'm a keen landscape photographer (pictures here). Some of my pictures can be seen on the walls in the philosophy department and on the philosophy website.

Selected publications