Abstract
Victoria Welby (1837–1912) began working on philosophy in 1880s Britain, a heady period which saw scientists and philosophers grappling with new theories of matter, evolution, and space. Building on the debates of her day, Welby produced her own metaphysic – an account of reality on which matter is really motion, and wherein everything is really spirit. This talk will explore reality a la Welby.
Biography
Emily Thomas is Professor in Philosophy at Durham University. Prior to this she obtained a PhD from the University of Cambridge, and held a NWO grant at the University of Groningen. She has published widely on the history of metaphysics, especially space and time. She is the author of several scholarly monographs, including Absolute Time: Rifts in Early Modern British Metaphysics (2018, Oxford University Press), and Victoria Welby (2023, Cambridge University Press); and the popular book The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad (Oxford University Press, 2020). In 2020 she won a Leverhulme Prize for excellence in research.