Philosophy of Science
General Philosophy of Science:
"Much of my work focuses on the nature of truth and truthmaking, and their connection to other areas in philosophy. My first book, The Primitivist Theory of Truth, defends the view that truth is an undefinable primitive concept. My second book, A Theory of Truthmaking, defends my novel approach to truthmaker theory, which is also the subject of my third book, Truthmaking. I have also published on the topics of deflationary truth, moral realism, scientific realism, Tarski, modality, theories of ontological commitment, presentism, and the liar paradox. I am currently researching the role of truth in political speech, psychological development, and the Chinese philosophical tradition."
"My philosophical work applies theories of evidence and probabilistic reasoning to problems in philosophy of religion and philosophy of science. My work in philosophy of religion, which is my primary research specialization, focuses on evidential arguments for and against God’s existence, including cosmological arguments, design arguments, and arguments from evil. My work in philosophy of science focuses primarily on probabilistic arguments for multiple universes and the requirement of total evidence, although I have also written on Darwinian gradualism. In addition, I have combined my interests in philosophy of religion and philosophy of science to generate a couple articles on the relationship between science, religion, and naturalism. Finally, my longstanding fascination with David Hume’s work on religion has led to a meager amount of work in the history of philosophy, while an emerging interest in the philosophy of mind and especially the hard problem of consciousness may or may not lead to something of value in the future. "
Philosophy of Biology:
"I came to philosophy through psychology, and my research has always focused on scientific theories of the mind, with a focus on the role of evolutionary history. My current focus is on the evolution of norms, or cultural values, and on the theoretical problems raised by the many conflicting ways norms are represented across the social sciences. This includes concerns about the nature of norms in general, but also certain specific types of norms, such as moral norms, norms of sustainability and environmentalism, and norms of democracy. This focus on norms is a natural extension of earlier work on the evolution of religion, morality, and culture in general, some of which focuses on purely theoretical issues, and has been published in Review of Philosophy and Psychology, Social Philosophy and Policy, and Journal of Cognition and Culture, while other work, published in Philosophical Psychology and Social Cognition, is empirical, using methods from experimental philosophy to measure folk intuitions about metaethics and the concept of morality. Finally, one strand of my research focuses on applying scientific theory, rather than developing it: I argue for climate solutions that focus on internalizing norms of sustainability and environmentalism, rather than merely complying with them as a means of avoiding punishment and gaining approval. Work on this topic has been published in Nature Sustainability, Sustainability, Sustainability Science, and Ecology and Society."
Philosophy of Physics:
"I am a philosopher of physics with a strong interest in the metaphysics of science. In the philosophy of physics, I work primarily on the philosophy of symmetries with a particular focus on the relationship between symmetries, observation, laws of nature and scientific representation (lately, I have also started to look into the role of symmetries in spacetime theories). In the metaphysics of science, I work on dispositional accounts of laws of nature, causation, and counterpossibles in science. I also work on the history and philosophy of quantum mechanics, with a special focus towards the notion of “separability” as employed by Einstein, and towards the role that the journal Epistemological Letters played in the foundations of quantum mechanics during the 70s."