Meetings

Philosophy of Physics Research Seminars Trinity Term 2025

Convened by James Read

NOTE THE NEW TIME: Oxford seminars will take place in person at 3.00 p.m. on Thursdays in the Lecture Room of Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. Talks will also be streamed, recorded, and (with speaker’s consent) published on our new You Tube channel

Those on the philosophy of physics mailing list will receive an invitation to join the meetings online; others should contact the convenors directly.

Abstracts are posted weekly.

Week 1 (1 May): William Wolf (Oxford)
Permanent underdetermination in modern cosmology.

Week 2 (8 May): Jer Steeger (Bristol)
Complementarity as infringement

Week 3 (15 May): NO SEMINAR

Week 4 (22 May): Simon Saunders (Oxford)
Principle and constructive theories of physical probability, and Bell inequalities

Week 5 (29 May): NO SEMINAR

Week 6 (5 June): George Webster (Oxford)
‘It from bit’ as a critical idealist proposal

Week 7 (12 June): JB Manchak (UC Irvine)
Spacetime asymmetry

Week 8 (19 June): Klaas Landsman (Radboud University)
Philosophy of Mathematical Physics from A to B

Week 9 (26 June 10.30-17.30) BLOC Philosophy of Physics Workshop KCL WC2R2LS

Philosophy of Physics Research Seminars Hilary Term 2025

Convened by Oliver Pooley

NOTE THE NEW TIME: Oxford seminars will take place in person at 3.00 p.m. on Thursdays in the Lecture Room of Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. Talks will also be streamed, recorded, and (with speaker’s consent) published on our new You Tube channel

Those on the philosophy of physics mailing list will receive an invitation to join the meetings online; others should contact the convenors directly.

Abstracts are posted weekly.

Week 1 (23 January): NO SEMINAR

Week 2 (30 January): Pablo Acuña (Pontifical Catholic University of Chile)
Hidden Variables: Contextuality and parameter (in)dependence

Week 3 (6 February): NO SEMINAR

Week 4 (13 February): Rob Iliffe (Oxford)
Exact conclusions from approximative reasoning: George Smith’s Principia Mathematica

Week 5 (20 February): Sarwar Ahmed (Wuppertal)
Inference to the source: the case of observing a binary black hole merger

Week 6 (27 February): Quentin Vigneron (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń)
Modifying general relativity on the basis of topological considerations from the Newtonian limit

Week 7 (6 March): Dominik Ehrenfels (Oxford)
Reviving reduction

Week 8 (13 March): Clara Bradley (UCL)
Are sophistication and reduction always viable alternatives?

Philosophy of Physics Research Seminars Michaelmas Term 2024

Convened by Chris Timpson

NOTE THE NEW TIME: Oxford seminars will take place in person at 3.00 p.m. on Thursdays in the Lecture Room of Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. Talks will also be streamed, recorded, and (with speaker’s consent) published on our new You Tube channel

Those on the philosophy of physics mailing list will receive an invitation to join the meetings online; others should contact the convenors directly.

Abstracts are posted weekly.

Week 1 (17 October): David Wallace (Pittsburgh)
The local quantum vacuum as the Past Hypothesis
Note: This talk will be followed by a reception on the 3rd floor, all welcome.

Week 2 (24 October): Peter Morgan (Yale)
QFT as noisy signal processing

Week 3 (31 October): NO SEMINAR

Week 4 (7 November):Paul Hoyningen-Huene (Leibniz Universität Hannover).
How do robust abstract economic models explain?

Week 5 (14 November): NO SEMINAR

Week 6 (21 November): Lucy Mason (Royal Holloway)
Measurement, metrology, and perspectives on the quantum state

Week 7 (28 November): BLOC SEMINAR (joint Bristol, London, Oxford, Cambridge): Simon Saunders (Oxford)
Quantum kinematics as intrinsic probability
Note: this seminar will take place in person only, at the LSE, Lakatos Building LAK 2.06, London WC2A 2HE, at 16.30.

Week 8 (5 December): Richard Healey (Arizona)
How to be a single-world quantum relativist

Philosophy of Physics Research Seminars Trinity Term 2024

Convened by Chris Timpson

NOTE THE NEW TIME: Seminars will take place in person at 3.00 p.m. on Thursdays in the Lecture Room of Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. Talks will also be streamed, recorded, and (with speaker’s consent) published on our new You Tube channel

Those on the philosophy of physics mailing list will receive an invitation to join the meetings online; others should contact the convenors directly.

Abstracts are posted weekly.

Week 1 (25 April): Simon Saunders (Oxford)
Finite frequentism explains quantum probability (or: Gibbs meets Everett)

Week 2 (2 May): Natasha Oughton (National Quantum Computing Centre)
Why quantum theory? Understanding and explanation through reconstruction

Week 3 (9 May): NO SEMINAR

Week 4 (16 May): Jingy Wu (LSE)
Between a Stone and a Hausdorff space

Week 5 (23 May):Daniel Grimmer (Oxford)
In search of new spacetimes: topological redescription via the ISE method

Week 6 (30 May): NO SEMINAR

Week 7 (6 June): Oliver Pooely (Oxford)
Dynamical versus geometrical approaches to spacetime structure

Week 8 (13 June): Giovanni Valente (Milan)
On the quantum Boltzmann equation: what is the source, if any, of irreversibility?

Philosophy of Physics research seminars Hilary Term 2024

Convened by Chris Timpson

NOTE THE NEW TIME: Seminars will take place in person at 3.00 p.m. on Thursdays in the Lecture Room of Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. Talks will also be streamed, recorded, and (with speaker’s consent) published on our new You Tube channel

Those on the philosophy of physics mailing list will receive an invitation to join the meetings online; others should contact the convenors directly.

Abstracts are posted weekly.

Week1 (18 Jan): NO SEMINAR

Week 2 (25 Jan): Caspar Jacobs (Leiden)
Stating Maths-First Realism, or How to Say Things with Models

Week3 (1 Feb): NO SEMINAR

Week 4 (8 Feb): Adam Caulton (Oxford)
Reduction and Equivalence: Some mild suggestions

Week 5 (15 Feb): NO SEMINAR

Week 6 (22 Feb): Nick Ormrod (Oxford)
Which theories have a measurement problem?

Week 7 (29 Feb): NO SEMINAR

Week 8 (7 Mar): James Read (Oxford)
The non-relativistic geometric trinity of gravity

Philosophy of Physics Research Seminars: Michaelmas Term 2023

Convened by Oliver Pooley

NOTE THE NEW TIME: All seminars will take place in person at 3.00 p.m. on Thursdays in the Lecture Room of Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. Talks will also be streamed, recorded, and (with speaker’s consent) published on our new You Tube channel

Those on the philosophy of physics mailing list will receive an invitation to join the meetings online; others should contact the convenors directly.

Abstracts are posted weekly.

Week 1 (12 Oct): David Wallace (Pittsburgh)
Thermodynamics with and without reversibility

Week 2 (19 Oct): Nicholas Teh (Notre Dame)
Understanding the Geroch–Jang argument

Week 3 (26 Oct): Sabine Hossenfelder (Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy)
Superdeterminism – the forgotten solution

Week 4 (2 Nov): NO SEMINAR

Week 5 (9 Nov): Tim Palmer (Oxford) and Chris Timpson (Oxford)
‌Superdeterminism and non-conspiracy revisited: a debate

Week 6 (16 Nov): Jonathan Halliwell (Imperial)
Aspects of Leggett–Garg tests of macrorealism

Week 7 (23 Nov): Neil Dewar (Cambridge)
The hole argument and mathematical practice

Week 8 (30 Nov): Bryan Roberts (LSE)
How black holes are really hot

Philosophy of Physics Research Seminars Trinity Term 2023

Convened by Patrick Durr and James Read
All seminars will take place in person at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays in the Lecture Room of Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. Talks will also be streamed, recorded, and (with speaker’s consent) published on our new You Tube channel

Those on the philosophy of physics mailing list will receive an invitation to join the meetings online; others should contact the convenors directly.

Abstracts are posted weekly.

Week 1 (27th April): Sebastian de Haro (Amsterdam)
Dualities and quasi-dualities: on solitons and phases of quantum field theories

Week 2 (4th May): Johannes Fankhauser (Oxford/Innsbruck)
Quantum uncertainty and empirical completeness

Week 3 (11th May): Renate Loll (Radboud University, Nijmegen)
Questions on quantum gravity

:Week 4 (18th May): Paul Skokowski (Stanford)
Superpositions and beliefs about superpositions

Week 5 (25th May): Fedele Lizzi (Naples)
Quantum Observers for Quantum Spacetime

Week 6 (1st Jun): Doreen Fraser (Waterloo)
Philosophical implications of measurement in QFT

Week 7 (8th June): Dennis Lehmkuhl (Bonn)
TBA

Week 8 (15th June): Natasha Oughton (Oxford)

Why quantum theory? Understanding and explanation through reconstruction

Philosophy of Physics Research Seminars Hilary Term 2023

Convened by Oliver Pooley, Henrique Gomes, and Patrick Durr
All seminars will take place in person at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays in the Lecture Room of Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. Talks will also be streamed, recorded, and (with speaker’s consent) published on our new You Tube channel

Those on the philosophy of physics mailing list will receive an invitation to join the meetings online; others should contact the convenors directly.

Abstracts are posted weekly.

Week 1 (19th January): NO SEMINAR

Week 2 (26 January): Kobi Kremnitzer (Mathematical Institute, Oxford)
Scientific theories of consciousness, the closure
of the (current) physical, and quantum collapse

Week 3 (2 Feb): NO SEMINAR

Week 4 (9 February): James Read (Philosophy, Oxford)
‌An invitation to constructive axiomatics

Week 5 (16 February): Marco Giovanelli (Philosophy, Turin)
Special Relativity as a theory of principles. On Einstein’s distinction between constructive and principle theories

Week 6 (23 February): Yemima Ben-Menahem (Philosophy, Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Lawlessness

Week 7 (2 March): Marina Cortês (Institute for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, Lisbon)
Biocosmology: towards the birth of a new physics field

Week 8 (9 March): Johannes Fankhauser (Philosophy, Oxford)
‌The empirical completeness problem of quantum mechanics

Philosophy of Physics Research Seminars Michaelmas Term 2022

Convened by Oliver Pooley and Henrique Gomes
All seminars (apart from the BBLOC seminar in Week 8) will take place in person at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays in the Lecture Room of Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. Talks will also be streamed, recorded, and (with speaker’s consent) published on our new You Tube channel

Those on the philosophy of physics mailing list will receive an invitation to join the meetings online; others should contact the convenors directly.

Abstracts are posted weekly.

Week 1 (13 October): Caspar Jacobs (Oxford, philosophy)
‌The Model Is Not the Territory: On Quality and Isomorphism

Week 2 (20 October):Lu Chen (Koç University)
A discrete case for dynamicism

Week 3 (27 October):Christian Wüthrich (Geneva, Philosophy)
Laws beyond spacetime

Week 4 (3 November):NO SEMINAR

Week 5 (10 November):Ted Jacobson (Maryland and Cambridge, Physics)
Diffeomorphism invariance and the black hole information paradox

Week 6 (17 November):Patrick Dürr (Oxford and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Philosophy)
Conventionalism – a sophisticated philosophy for our (space)times

Week 7 (24 November):Natasha Oughton (University of Oxford)
Why quantum theory? Understanding and explanation through reconstruction

Week 8 (1 December): BBLOC seminar, Kings College London: Sam Fletcher (Minnesota and London)
The representation and determinable structure of quantum properties

For details of the BBLOC seminar, email Alex Franklin, KCL.

Philosophy of Physics Research Seminars Trinity Term 2022

Convened by Simon Saunders
All seminars will take place in person at 4.30 p.m. on Thursdays of Trinity Term in the Lecture Room of Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. Talks will also be streamed, recorded, and (with speaker’s consent) published on our new You Tube channel

Those on the philosophy of physics mailing list will receive an invitation to join the meetings online; others should contact the convenor directly.

Abstracts are posted weekly.

Week 1 (28th April): Ard Louis (Oxford, physics)
An algorithmic version of Occam’s razor in machine learning and biological evolution

Week 2 (5th May):Julian Barbour (Independent, physics)
Complexity as Time

Week 3 (12th May): Tomasz Bigaj (Warsaw, philosophy)
Entanglement and discernibility of identical particles

Week 4 (19th May): Jim Al Khalili (Surrey, physics)
Life on the Edge: the dawn of quantum biology

Week 5 (26th May): Nick Huggett (Illinois, philosophy)
Quantum gravity in a laboratory

Week 6 (2nd June):Simon Saunders (Oxford, philosophy)
Probability and branch-counting in the decoherence-based Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics

\Week 7 (9th June): Fay Dowker (Imperial, physics)
Recovering General Relativity from a Planck scale discrete theory of quantum gravity

Week 8 (16th June): Oliver Pooley (Oxford, philosophy)
Models of the open future and relativistic physics