Joe Lee-Doktor

I have very general interests in the philosophy of science and foundations of physics but my own research focuses primarily on the foundations of spacetime physics and nature of laws, informed by formal ideas in both theoretical physics and mathematics. 

I have been focusing on questions about the relationship between spacetime and dynamical laws, specifically in Einstein's theories of special and general relativity. In particular: does the geometrical structure of spacetime play some role in explaining the form of the dynamical laws governing matter? Or is it the formal properties of dynamical laws that explain the geometrical structure of our world's spacetime? Philosophers of science and metaphysicians more generally have recognised many different kinds of explanation so, in either case, what kind of explanation is involved in appeals to geometrical structure in science? And, crucially, what is the resulting picture we obtain of spacetime's geometry? Is this a causal(-like) structure? Is it an abstract/mathematical structure that somehow gets mixed up in the behaviour of physical stuff? Is it a human convention adopted by theorists?

Alongside this, I have been researching questions about the nature of physical laws and causation. Are physical laws and causal relations really ``out there'' in the world just waiting to be discovered or are they too actually human conventions? Are they merely patterns, or do they stand above and explain the patterns that scientists discover through observation and experiment? And how do these questions interact with those above about the nature of spacetime?

Besides this, I am very interested in theoretical physics, physical cosmology (and the philosophy of), political theory, history, the philosophy of history, buddhist philosophy, and much more. In my view, philosophy is best when it exists in dialogue with other disciplines, on the boundary between the empirical and the speculative. After all, departmental distinctions are an invention of the last ~100-200 years. We must be careful not to let such artificial constructions constrain our research or intellectual endeavours!