I am an Assistant Professor at University of the Fraser Valley.

I completed my PhD in the Philosophy Department at Northwestern University in 2021. Before Northwestern, I received a BA in Philosophy and Psychology from the University of Toronto.

The overarching theme of my research concerns the nature of affective experiences–experiences that have a positive or negative hedonic tone and are often motivational–and their relation to a subject’s point of view. I am especially interested in the role of conscious emotions, inclinations, and certain felt attitudes in constituting and shaping this point of view. I approach these issues by examining the nature of first-order affective experiences, our epistemic capacity to introspectively identify them, and the conditions under which we are responsible for them.

A central theme of my work is that emotions are patterns of mental change, rather than discrete mental states.

You can email me at mark [dot] thomson [at] ufv [dot] ca

Email me for my CV.