Dr Thomas Brouwer
- Position: Lecturer
- Areas of expertise: Social ontology; philosophy of logic; metasemantics; metaphysics.
- Email: T.N.P.A.Brouwer@leeds.ac.uk
- Location: 3.05 Botany House
- Website: PhilPeople profile | Twitter | ORCID
Profile
I'm a philosopher working primarily in social ontology, and also in some other areas like the philosophy of logic, metaphysics and metasemantics, and the research development officer for PRHS, which means that I advise on research funding applications. I’m currently attached to the ERC Consolidator Project Group Thinking: New Foundations (2019-2024) led by Robbie Williams, and do primarily social ontology-related research on that project. Before that, I was attached to the ERC project The Nature of Representation (2012-2017), also led by Robbie Williams, but just for its last two years. Prior to that, I was at the Northern Institute of Philosophy in Aberdeen for a few years, working with Francesco Berto and Toby Meadows on the AHRC project The Metaphysical Basis of Logic (2013-15). And before that, I did my PhD here at Leeds under the supervision of Robbie Williams, Jason Turner and Robin Le Poidevin, on a topic at the intersection of metaphysics and the philosophy of logic. I did my first degree (also in philosophy) at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
Responsibilities
- Research Development Officer
Research interests
Within social ontology, I'm interested in some very general questions about social facts: how they come about, how they interrelate and relate to other kinds of facts about the world, and what logical constraints they can be expected to obey. I'm interested in counterfactual reasoning about social facts, and in the relativity (if such it should be called) of social facts to times and cultures.
In the philosophy of logic, my interests include the nature and normativity of logical consequence (when A follows from B, what does that mean, and why should we care?); in logical complexity and the logical constants (what kinds of facts, if any, are expressed by logically complex statements?); and in truth and falsity in non-classical logics.
Beyond these areas, I am interested in topics in metasemantics, general metaphysics and metaontology, and aesthetics.
For more information see also my personal website.
<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>Professional memberships
- International Social Ontology Society (ISOS)
- Dutch Research School of Philosophy (OZSW)
- Aristotelian Society
Student education
I do occasional teaching on a variety of topics, and I’m supervising some PhD and dissertation projects in social ontology. I hope to do a bit more teaching in social ontology-related areas in future.
Research groups and institutes
- Philosophy