Nick Huggett

Nick Huggett is an LAS Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago (PhD Rutgers University, 1995). His specialties are the philosophy of science and the philosophy of physics. His early publications concentrated on quantum field theory (for example, “Philosophical Foundations of Quantum Field Theory” in Philosophy of Science Today, Oxford University Press, 2003). More recent work concerned theories of space from antiquity to the present (e.g., Space from Zeno to Einstein, MIT Press, 1999; “The Regularity Account of Relational Spacetime” in Mind, 2006; and with Craig Callender [UCSD] an anthology on the philosophy of quantum theories of gravity, Physics Meets Philosophy at the Planck Scale, Cambridge University Press, 2001). He has also collaborated with Tom Imbo (UIC Physics Department) on the foundations of quantum mechanics (e.g.,”Indistinguishability” in the Compendium of Quantum Physics, Springer, 2009). His book Everywhere and Everywhen (Oxford University Press, February 2010) introduces a general audience to the philosophy of physics. Most recently he has been collaborating with Christian Wüthrich (University of Geneva) on a project, supported by ACLS, NSF and the John Templeton Foundation, on philosophy and quantum gravity: see beyondspacetime.net for information. They have written articles (for example, “Emergent Spacetime and Empirical (In)coherence” in Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 2013), organized conferences, edited a journal special edition, and are completing a book. In 2015-8, they are running a JTF funded project, involving postdocs, students, workshops, publications, and speakers, Space and Time After Quantum Gravity.