Research

My main interest is in the interpretation of space-time physics. I work on a number of topics that fall under this broad heading, including (i) the substantivalist--relationalist debate, (ii) the status of general covariance, (iii) Machian approaches to general relativity, especially Julian Barbour's approach, (iv) dynamical approaches to spacetime structure, and (v) the interpretation of parity violation.

My interests extend to a number of other related topics. These include (i) philosophical issues that arise in the context of quantum gravity, especially those that concern the interpretation of classical theories, and (ii) the metaphysics of time, modality and identity.

Papers

  1. `Relativistic Persistence' (with Ian Gibson), Philosophical Perspectives 20, Metaphysics (2006): 157--98. [ Journal link | Preprint ]
  2. `A hole revolution, or are we back we started?', Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 37 (2006): 372--380. [ Journal link | Preprint ]
  3. `Points, particles and structural realism', to appear in D. Rickles, S. French & J. Saatsi (eds), The Structural Foundations of Quantum Gravity (OUP, 2006), pp. 83--120. [ Preprint ]
  4. `Minkowski space-time: a glorious non-entity' (with H.R. Brown) in Dieks (ed.), The Ontology of Spacetime (Elsevier, 2006), pp. 67--89. [ Preprint ]
  5. `Comments on Sklar's ``Barbour's Relationist Metric of Time'' ', Chronos (Proceedings of the Philosophy of Time Society) 6 (2003--4): 77--86. [ Postprint ]
  6. `Handedness, parity violation, and the reality of space' in K. Brading & E. Castellani (eds), Symmetries in Physics: Philosophical Reflections (CUP, 2003), pp. 250--80. [ Preprint ]
  7. `Relationalism Rehabilitated? II: Relativity' [ PhilSci ]
  8. `Relationalism Rehabilitated? I: Classical Mechanics' (with H.R. Brown), British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 53 (2002): 183--204. [ Journal link | Preprint ]
  9. `The origin of the spacetime metric' in C. Callender and N. Huggett (eds), Physics meets Philosophy at the Planck Scale (CUP, 2001), pp. 256--72. [ PhilSci | arXiv ] (with Harvey R. Brown)
  10. `The Problem of Induction from the perspective of physics', (with H.R. Brown) Manuscrito 22 (1999): 29--35.

Talks and conference papers

Upcoming talks

Previous Talks

Work in progress

Papers

Book

I am completing a book on spacetime. The question it addresses—the question at the heart of the so-called `substantivalist–relationalist debate'—is whether space or spacetime is an entity in its own right.

The book defends a variety of anti-haecceitist substantivalism: the substantivalist should deny that two qualitatively identical possible worlds can nonetheless differ solely in terms of a permutation of some of the individuals (in this case, spacetime points) common to both worlds.

Table of contents:

  1. The origins of the debate
  2. Leibniz and sophisticated substantivalism
  3. Dynamical spacetime
  4. The hole argument
  5. Machian relationalism
  6. Geometrodynamics
  7. Handedness
  8. Parity violation
  9. Space and time in quantum gravity

Thesis

My D.Phil. thesis, The reality of spacetime, was supervised by Harvey Brown and Simon Saunders. It can be accessed from within the .ox.ac.uk domain, either as html or as a PDF file (1.58 MB). It will be superseded by a book version. In the meantime, if you would like to get a copy, contact me.