Welcome

I'm an assistant professor of philosophy at SMU. My main area of research is in the philosophy of mind, especially consciousness and the philosophy of perception. I have further interests in cognitive science, metaphysics, epistemology, and meta-ethics. I also teach an introductory course in applied ethics.

Background

My undergraduate degree was in philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science at Rice University in Houston. I obtained a Ph.D in philosophy at the University of Arizona in the summer of 2003, with a minor in cognitive science. I started teaching in the philosophy department at SMU in the fall of 2003. My CV can be viewed here.

Research

Much of my research concerns the relationship between the two central features of mentality--consciousness and intentionality. I'm particularly interested in the idea that conscious experiences have a certain kind of intentional content in virtue of their phenomenal character. In several papers I have argued for a Fregean rather than a Russellian theory of phenomenal content. I've also written on the topics of color constancy, the inverted spectrum, the spatial content of experience, and the argument from hallucination.

I have also "dabbled" in meta-ethics. In particular, I have defended a "response-dependent" account of moral value in "Moral Value, Response-Dependence, and Rigid Designation" (2006, Canadian Journal of Philosophy). I hope to return to this topic again in the not-too-distant future.

Representative Publications

Thompson, B. forthcoming. "The Spatial Content of Experience,"Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
Thompson, B. forthcoming. "Senses for Senses," Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
Thompson, B. forthcoming. "Representationalism and the Argument from Hallucination,"Pacific Philosophical Quarterly.
Thompson, B. forthcoming. "Representationalism and the Conceivability of Inverted Spectra," Synthese.
Thompson, B. forthcoming. "The Inverted Spectrum," in Oxford Companion to Consciousness, edited by Cleeremans et al.
Thompson, B. 2007. "Shoemaker on Phenomenal Content," Philosophical Studies 135: 307-334.
Thompson, B. 2006. "Colour Constancy and Russellian Representationalism," Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84: 75-94.
Thompson, B. 2006. "Moral Value, Response-Dependence, and Rigid Designation," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 36: 71-94.

All of these papers (along with abstracts) can be found here.

Teaching

This fall (2007) I am teaching PHIL 1318: Contemporary Moral Problems and PHIL 3310: Advanced Topics in Philosophy, devoted to the topic of Consciousness.