Adam Toon

Dr. Adam Toon is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Exeter, and Deputy Director of Egenis, the Centre for the Study of Life Sciences. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge (supervised by Prof. Martin Kusch), an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a BA from King’s College, Cambridge. His research bridges philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and sociology of scientific knowledge, focusing on representation, extended cognition, and mental fictionalism.

• Education:
  • PhD in History and Philosophy of Science (University of Cambridge)
  • MSc in Philosophy and History of Science (London School of Economics)
  • BA in Natural Sciences (King’s College, Cambridge)
• Research Interests: Mental fictionalism, distributed cognition, scientific models, sociology of knowledge, and interdisciplinary philosophy.
• Affiliations: Egenis, Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice.

His work explores how concepts like 'mind' and 'representation' function as metaphors shaped by human culture. Recent publications include Mind as Metaphor (Oxford UP, 2023) and co-edited Mental Fictionalism (Routledge, 2022). He delivered the 2023 Gottlob Frege Lectures on mental fictionalism at the University of Tartu.

Grants:

• Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (2013-2015) for research on 'Science as extended cognition.'

Labs/Teams: Egenis, leading studies in life sciences and interdisciplinary research.