Prof Simon Prosser
Professor
Biography
I am on research leave from September 2023 until January 2025, funded for the first 12 months by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. I'm spending this period working on a book, provisionally entitled Conscious Experience: A Defence of External World Functionalism.
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.
Research areas
My research interests are principally in the philosophy of mind and perception, and secondarily 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):
- Conscious experience - Intentionalism, phenomenal concepts, explanatory gap. I am currently writing a book on this, emphasising the role of the first-person perspective.
- Temporal experience - I am interested in all aspects of current philosophical work on temporal experience, including, but not limited to, connections with the metaphysics of time.
- 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.
- 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 couple of articles.
- Emergent properties and 'new Zeno' phenomena - This 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
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Experiencing Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. [Book symposium in Inquiry]
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Simon Prosser and François Recanati (eds.) Immunity to Error Through Misidentification: New Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Articles, chapters etc.
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Shared Egocentric Thoughts. In José Luis Bermúdez, Victor Verdejo, and Matheus Valente (eds.) Sharing Thoughts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
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Tense and Emotion. In K. M. Jaszczolt (ed.) Understanding Human Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023: 11-29.
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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'.
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The Metaphysics of Mental Files. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 100 (2020): 657-676. [Draft]
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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]
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Shared Modes of Presentation. Mind & Language, 34 (2019): 465-482. [Draft]
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Replies to Deng, Lee, and Skow. Inquiry, 61 (2018): 328-350. (Contribution to a book symposium on my book Experiencing Time.) [Draft]
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Rethinking the Specious Present. In Ian Phillips (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Temporal Experience. London: Routledge, 2017: 146-156. [Draft]
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Why are Indexicals Essential? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 115 (2015): 211-233. [Draft, Podcast]
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Is There a ‘Specious Present’? Insights (E-Journal of Durham Institute of Advanced Study, ISSN 1756-2074), 6 (2013). [Published Paper]
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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]
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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]
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Passage and Perception. Noûs, 47 (2013): 69-84. [Draft]
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Emergent Causation. Philosophical Studies, 159 (2012): 21-39. [Draft]
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Why Does Time Seem to Pass? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 85 (2012): 92-116. [Draft]
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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]
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Affordances and Phenomenal Character in Spatial Perception. The Philosophical Review, 120.4 (2011): 475-513. [Draft]
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Zeno Objects and Supervenience. Analysis, 69 (2009): 18-26. [Draft]
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The Two-Dimensional Content of Consciousness. Philosophical Studies, 136 (2007): 319-349. [Draft]
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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]
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The Eleatic Non-Stick Frying Pan. Analysis, 66 (2006): 187-194. [Draft]
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Temporal Metaphysics in Z-Land. Synthese, 149 (2006): 77-96. [Draft]
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Cognitive Dynamics and Indexicals. Mind & Language, 20 (2005): 369-391. [Draft]
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A New Problem for the A-Theory of Time. The Philosophical Quarterly, 50 (2000): 494-498. [Draft]
PhD supervision
- Sam Heffron
- Haoxu Wang
- Suzuka Komatsu
Selected publications
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Open access
Commentary: physical time within human time
Prosser, S., 15 Jun 2023, In: Frontiers in Psychology. 14Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment/debate › peer-review
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Tense and emotion
Prosser, S., 18 Aug 2023, Understanding human time. Jaszczolt, K. M. (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 11-29 (Oxford studies of time in language and thought).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Open access
The metaphysics of mental files
Prosser, S., 13 May 2020, In: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 100, 3, p. 657-676Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Locating the contradiction in our understanding of time
Prosser, S. J., 12 Dec 2019, In: Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 42, e272.Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment/debate › peer-review
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Open access
Shared modes of presentation
Prosser, S., Sept 2019, In: Mind & Language. 34, 4, p. 465-482Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Replies to Deng, Lee, and Skow
Prosser, S., 2018, In: Inquiry - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. 61, 3, p. 328-350 23 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
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Open access
Rethinking the specious present
Prosser, S. J., 10 May 2017, Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Temporal Experience. Phillips, I. (ed.). Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, (Routledge Handbooks in Philosophy).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Experiencing time
Prosser, S. J., 5 May 2016, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 238 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Open access
XII - Why are indexicals essential?
Prosser, S. J., 1 Dec 2015, In: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 115, 3 pt 3, p. 211-233Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Experience, Thought, and the Metaphysics of Time
Prosser, S. J., 2013, Time : Language, Cognition, and Reality. Jaszczolt, K. M. & de Saussure, L. (eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 157-174 (Oxford Studies of Time in Language and Thought).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter