This book is a collection of essays whose topics center around relations between analytic metaphysics and modern physical theories. The contributions to the volume cover a broad spectrum of issues, ranging from metaphysical implications of selected physical theories (quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, general relativity, string theory etc.), to specific problems in scientifically-oriented analytic metaphysics, such as the problem of emergence and reduction, the part-whole relation, and the question of objecthood, properties and individuality on the fundamental level of reality. The authors of the contributions are philosophers of science, physicists and metaphysicians of international renown, and their work represents the cutting edge in modern metaphysics of physical sciences.
Contributors are: Tomasz Bigaj, Jessica Bloom, Nazim Bouatta, Jeremy Butterfield, Adam Caulton, Dennis Dieks, Mauro Dorato, Michael Esfeld, Steven French, Andreas Hüttemann, Marek Kuś, Douglas Kutach, Vincent Lam, Olimpia Lombardi, Kerry McKenzie, Thomas Møller-Nielsen, Matteo Morganti, Ioan Muntean, Dean Rickles, Antonio Vassallo, Jessica Wilson, Christian Wüthrich
Tomasz Bigaj, Ph.D. (1996), University of Warsaw, is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warsaw. He has published articles and books on philosophy of physics and analytic metaphysics, including Non-locality and Possible Worlds. A Counterfactual Perspective on Quantum Entanglement (Ontos Verlag, 2006).
Christian Wüthrich, Ph.D. (2006), University of Pittsburgh, is Associate Professor at the University of Geneva. He had published articles on physics, philosophy of physics, and metaphysics in numerous venues.
Tomasz Bigaj and Christian Wüthrich: Introduction.
Steven French and Kerry McKenzie: Rethinking Outside the Toolbox: Reflecting Again on the Relationship between Philosophy of Science and Metaphysics.
Douglas Kutach: Ontology: An Empirical Fundamentalist Approach.
Vincent Lam: Quantum Structure and Spacetime.
Dean Rickles and Jessica Bloom: Things Ain’t What They Used to Be. Physics Without Objects .
Olimpia Lombardi and Dennis Dieks: Particles in a Quantum Ontology of Properties.
Tomasz Bigaj: Essentialism and Modern Physics .
Thomas Møller-Nielsen: Symmetry and Qualitativity.
Matteo Morganti: Relational Time.
Antonio Vassallo: General Covariance, Diffeomorphism Invariance, and Background Independence in 5 Dimensions.
Ioan Muntean: A Metaphysics from String Dualities: Pluralism, Fundamentalism, Modality.
Adam Caulton: Is Mereology Empirical? Composition for Fermions.
Andreas Hüttemann: Physicalism and the Part-Whole Relation.
Jessica Wilson: Metaphysical Emergence: Weak and Strong.
Mauro Dorato and Michael Esfeld: The Metaphysics of Laws: Dispositionalism vs. Primitivism.
Marek Kuś: Classical and Quantum Sources of Randomness.
Jeremy Butterfield and Nazim Bouatta: Renormalization for Philosophers.
Researchers and post-graduate students interested in the foundations of physical sciences and philosophy of science.