Staff profile

I am interested in issues in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind in early modern and nineteenth-century philosophy.

I spend a lot of my time working on forgotten figures in the history of philosophy (James Ward, Charles Renouvier, and Clarisse Coignet, to name a few), but I have recently been focusing my research on the more well known philosophers William James and Hegel. I am writing a book on William James and the relationship between his metaphysics and his pragmatism, and I hope to finish that relatively soon. I am also writing a book on habit in the history of philosophy (from Descartes to Dewey), which will no doubt take a lot longer.

Before coming to work at Durham, I held a Levehulme Early Career Fellowship at the University of Sheffield, a Visiting Fellowship at the University of Chicago's Commitee on Social Thought, and an Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities Research Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh.

I am also the treasurer for the British Society for the History of Philosophy: http://www.bshp.org.uk/

My Office Hours are 3-4 on Wednesdays and 3-5 on Thursdays every week during term time. 

• Early Modern Philosophy
• Habit
• Idealism
• Nineteenth-Century French Philosophy
• Pragmatism
• William James

Authored book

• Dunham, J., Grant, I., & Watson, S. (2014). Idealism: The History of a Philosophy. Routledge

Chapter in book

• Dunham, J. (2021). Bergson and William James. In M. Sinclair, & Y. Wolf (Eds.), The Bergsonian Mind. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429020735
• Dunham, J. (2020). "Monkeys and Monads". In J. Weckend, & L. Strickland (Eds.), Leibniz's Legacy and Impact. Routledge
• Dunham, J. (2018). James and the Metaphysics of Intentionality: Royce, Bergson, and the Miller-Bode Objections. In A. Klein (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of William James. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199395699.001.0001
• Dunham, J. (2017). Leibniz et la philosophie français du XIXe siècle’. In M. Laerke, C. Leduc, & D. Rabouin (Eds.), Leibniz: Lectures et commentaires. Librairie philosophique J. Vrin
• Dunham, J. (2016). A Universal and Absolute Spiritualism: Maine de Biran’s Leibniz. In D. Meacham, & J. Spadola (Eds.), The Relationship between the Physical and Moral in Man: The Philosophy of Maine de Biran (157-197). Bloomsbury

Edited book

• Dunham, J., & Phemister, P. (Eds.). (2018). Monadologies. Routledge

Journal Article

• Dunham, J. (2023). Flights in the resting places: James and Bergson on mental synthesis and the experience of time. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 31(2), 183-204. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2022.2136138
• Dunham, J. (2020). On the Experience of Activity: William James's Late Metaphysics and the Influence of Nineteenth-Century French Spiritualism. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 58(2), 267-291. https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.2020.0039
• Dunham, J. (2020). Overcoming the Divide between Freedom and Nature: Clarisse Coignet on the Metaphysics of Independent Morality. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 28(5), 987-1008. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2019.1668351
• Dunham, J. (2019). Habits of Mind: A Brand New Condillac. https://doi.org/10.32881/jomp.11
• Dunham, J., & Lawford-Smith, H. (2017). Offsetting Race Privilege. Journal of ethics & social philosophy, 11(2), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v11i2.109
• Dunham, J. (2015). From Habit to Monads: Félix Ravaisson’s Theory of Substance. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 23(6), 1085-1105. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2015.1078775
• Dunham, J., & Phemister, P. (2015). Monadologies: An Historical Overview. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 23(6), 1023-1032. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2015.1111191
• Dunham, J. (2015). Idealism, Pragmatism, and the Will to Believe: Charles Renouvier and William James. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 23(4), 756-778. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2014.1002074
• Dunham, J. (2014). Was James Ward a Cambridge Pragmatist?. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 22(3), 557-581. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2014.928609