Prof. Dr. Dustin Stokes
Academic staff
Chair of Metaphysics
Office address:
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
Room A U 128
80539 München
Personal information
Dustin Stokes is a philosopher and cognitive scientist specializing in perception, imagination, and creativity.
He investigates how mental, sensory, and bodily forms of engaging with the world shape our thinking, feeling, and acting. In doing so, he combines analytic philosophy with empirical research from psychology, neuroscience, and AI.
Dustin Stokes is a senior researcher at the Chair of Metaphysics at LMU Munich. He previously taught at the universities of Sussex, Toronto, and Utah. In his work, he advocates for a dynamic, malleable understanding of the mind – and for bridging theory, science, and lived experience.
Curriculum vitae
- 2025 -
- Senior Researcher, LMU, Faculty of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science and Religious Studies, Chair of Metaphysics
- 2022 - 2025
- Professor, University of Utah, Department of Philosophy
- 2016 - 2022
- Associate Professor, University of Utah, Department of Philosophy
- 2012 - 2016
- Assistant Professor, University of Utah, Department of Philosophy
- 2009 - 2012
- Visiting Assistant Professor and Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto
- 2008 - 2009
- SSHRC-IOF Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Toronto
- 2007 - 2008
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science, Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto
- 2005 - 2007
- Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Research in Cognitive Science, Department of Informatics, University of Sussex
Selected publications
1. Perception and its Modalities, Ed. with S. Biggs and M. Matthen, Oxford University Press (2014)
2. Thinking and Perceiving: On the malleability of the mind, New Problems of Philosophy Series, London, Routledge (May 2021)
3. “Perceptual malleability: Attention, Imagination, Objectivity: A Reply to Commentators: Kind, O’Callaghan, Wu” Philosophical Studies (2023)
4. “Creativity.” w/ Elliot Paul, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2023)
5. “On perceptual expertise” Mind & Language 36 (2): 241-263 (2021).
6. “Mental imagery and fiction” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 49 (6): 731-754 (2018)
7. “Attention and the cognitive penetrability of perception” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 96(2): 303-18 (2018)
8. “Attributing creativity” w/ E. Paul, in B. Gaut and M. Kieran (Eds) Creativity and Philosophy, London: Routledge (2018)
9. “Rich perceptual content and aesthetic properties”, in A. Bergqvist and R. Cowan, Evaluative Perception, Oxford University Press (2018)
10. “Modular architectures and informational encapsulation: A dilemma”-w/ Vincent Bergeron, European Journal for the Philosophy of Science 5 (3): 315-38 (2015).
11. “The dominance of the visual”, co-authored w/ Stephen Biggs, in D. Stokes, S. Biggs, and M. Matthen (eds) Perception and its Modalities, New York: Oxford University Press (2014)
12. “The role of imagination in creativity” in E. Paul and S.B. Kaufman (eds) The Philosophy of Creativity, New York: Oxford University Press (2014)
13. “Perceiving and Desiring: A New Look at the Cognitive Penetrability of Experience,” Philosophical Studies 158(3): 477-92 (2012)
Academic distinctions
- Visiting Director of Studies-Institut Jean-Nicod/EHESS, Paris (2021)
- Faculty Fellows Award, University of Utah (2019)
- University Research Council Fellow, University of Utah (2013)
- Virgil D. Aldrich Faculty Fellow, Tanner Humanities Center, University of Utah (2013)
- Ramona Cannon Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities, University of Utah (2017)
- Dean’s Excellence Award-Teaching-University of Toronto (2010-2011)