Dr de Waal’s primary research interests concern Plato’s epistemology and metaphysics.  She also has a strong interest in contemporary Philosophy of Mathematics.  

 

Her current research focuses on the role of mathematics in Plato’s philosophy – especially the intermediary role it plays in facilitating cognitive development; and the role of images in Plato’s philosophy – in particular, whether images, broadly construed, can be seen to play a positive epistemological role on Plato’s account.  

 

Tamsin completed an MPhil in Ancient Philosophy at Cambridge, and her PhD at King’s College London.  She has taught at UCL and King’s, lecturing in both Ancient Philosophy and Philosophy of Mathematics, and has recently spent time in the US as a Visiting Scholar in Philosophy at NYU, Columbia, and Penn.

 

Select Publications

 

‘Plato on the Act of Informing: Meaningful speech and education’, in Information and the History of Philosophy, C. Meyns (ed.), Routledge (June 2021)

 

‘The Mathematicians’ Use of Diagrams in Plato’, in Knowledge, Number and Reality: Encounters with the work of Keith Hossack, B. Assadian, N. Kürbis, J. Nassim (eds.), Bloomsbury, London (Jan 2022)

 

‘Treating Images as Images in Plato’s Republic’, in Re-reading the Republic, Edinburgh Leventis Studies 11, M.M. McCabe & S. Trépanier (eds.), Edinburgh University Press (forthcoming, 2024)