Matt Farr

Department of History and Philosophy of Science | University of Cambridge

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About

I'm a philosopher specialising on the metaphysics and epistemology of time and causation. I'm currently a Teaching Associate in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. I have previously held postdoctoral research fellowships at the University of Queensland's School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry (2014-2017), and the University of Sydney's Centre for Time (2013-2014). In 2013, I was awarded a PhD in Philosophy by the University of Bristol for my thesis Towards a C Theory of Time, which was written under the supervision of James Ladyman and examined by Huw Price (Cambridge) and Alexander Bird (Bristol). I have been a research member of the projects New Agendas for the Study of Time (Sydney, 2013-2014) and The Causal Power of Information in a Quantum World (Queensland, 2014-2017).

Research

Does time have a direction? One might think the answer is 'obviously'. However, the combination of the ubiquity and obscurity of the idea of reality as being some kind of time directed process makes the issue ripe for philosophical analysis. My research is geared at addressing a cluster of interrelated philosophical problems concerning the directionality of time, such as causation, scientific explanation, and our concept of personhood over time. I employ an empirically-based methodology, incorporating emerging research in psychology and physics into philosophical debates about time and causation, applying philosophical methods to foundational problems in psychology and physics, and examining the relationship between science and metaphysics more generally. + read more about my current research

My current work covers three main issues.

1. The C Theory of Time. It is popular to picture the world as ‘evolving’ from earlier to later times. This picture is poorly motivated by the kinds of time-asymmetric phenomena in the world, by our experience of time, and by modern physics. My work defends a ‘C theory of time,’ according to which ‘earlier’ and ‘later’ function as perspectival notions, much like ‘up’ and ‘down’, and explores the significance of this view for the metaphysics of causation, laws, chance, and modality more generally.

Relevant works:
• On A- and B-theoretic elements of branching spacetimes
• Causation and Time Reversal
• Review of Maudlin

2. Causation and Physics. What is the status of the directionality of causation in physics? It is common to provide causal explanations across the sciences, including physics. However, contemporary fundamental theories are ‘non-causal’ in a number of ways. For instance, the time symmetries of classical theories are prima facie at odds with the asymmetry of cause and effect, and the existence of non-local quantum correlations has led many to hold that quantum mechanics is non-causal in structure, or (alternatively) requires retrocausality. My work assesses the significance for causation of spatially and temporally non-local constraints, and defends ‘compatibilist’ accounts of causation, such as agency theories.

Relevant works:
• Causation and Time Reversal
• A relic of a bygone age
• Review of Frisch
• Causation and Quantum Mechanics
• Causal realism in physics
• Causation, Time Symmetry and Russell's Directionality Argument

3. Temporal Psychology. How do the physics and psychology of time relate? It is commonly held that physics ‘leaves out’ key aspects of our experience of time, namely the distinction between the past, present and future, and the ‘passage’ of time. My work explores this ‘explanatory gap’ and its parallels with the philosophy of mind. I defend a reductionist account of temporal phenomenology, arguing that our experience of temporal passage just is our experience of change, motion, succession, and other such features of the world well studied by psychophysics. My most recent work looks at emerging empirical research in psychophysics and neuroscience on temporal aspects of perception and memory and how these challenge traditional philosophical theories of the temporally-extended self.

Relevant works:
• Explaining Temporal Qualia
• Temporal Ontology in Perspective
• Temporal Experience, Temporal Passage and the Cognitive Sciences

Teaching

In the 2017-2018 year at Cambridge I ran the following courses:

Reichenbach's The Direction of Time. + info

Philosophy of Physics. + info

Metaphysics of Physics. + info

Realism & Reduction. (With Agnes Bolinska)+ info

Theory, Laws and Evidence. (With Anna Alexandrova) + info

At the University of Queensland (2014-2017) I coordinated the following courses:

2015. Advanced Topics in Metaphysics: Time and Causation + info

2014. Advanced Topics in Metaphysics: What is Time? + info

Try here for older courses.

Current Activity

Life comes at you fast. 2018 is a year for finalising my first monograph — The Time-Directed Universe: A Defence of the C Theory of Time —, and a series of related papers promoting and defending this theory of time. More importantly, 2018 sees us raising our first baby. You're most likely to find me intermittently touring the UK promoting the book, or else resting/recovering in Cambridge.

Events

Stay tuned for some planned philosophy events in the UK. Here's some info on previous conference and workshops I've organised. In 2015 I coorganised the conference Causality in a Quantum World with my colleague Pete Evans on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. I have previously organised/co-organised the following conferences: Free Will and Retrocausality in a Quantum World at Trinity College, Cambridge; Time Symmetry: A Unified Approach at the University of Sydney; The Present State of Presentism at the University of Bristol; and Conventional Principles in Science, Bristol. From 2013-2014, I ran the Sydney Foundations of Physics seminar series.

Misc.

My Erdös number is 5: Erdös→Anderson→Binmore→Paternotte→Ivanova→Me.

Had I been less interested in counterfactuals, I'd probably make my living as a drummer.

I'm happily married to this fellow philosopher, and spend most of my time figuring how to keep our little one entertained.

+ latest news

Publications

Journal Articles

2017. Causation and Time Reversal
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science + details

2016. Review of Mathias Frisch’s Causal Reasoning in Physics
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science + details

2015. Conventional Principles in Science: On the foundations and development of the relativized a priori [With M. Ivanova]
Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics + details

2015. Temporal Experience, Temporal Passage and the Cognitive Sciences [With S. Baron, J. Cusbert, M. Kon & K. Miller]
Philosophy Compass + details

2015. Review of Tim Maudlin’s Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time
Philosophy in Review + details

2013. A Relic of a Bygone Age? Causation, Time Symmetry and the Directionality Argument [With A. Reutlinger]
Erkenntnis + details

2012. On A- and B-Theoretic Elements of Branching Spacetimes
Synthese + details

Works in Progress

Drafts

Explaining Temporal Qualia. + abstract

Temporal Ontology in Perspective. + abstract

Pre-entanglement shows that individual quantum systems do not possess states (with D. Miller). + abstract

Causality and Quantum Mechanics (with D. Miller).

Coming soon...

The Time Directed Universe: A Defence of the C Theory of Time. [Monograph]
The C Theory of Time.
Perceiving Backwards Causation.
The Past Hypothesis needs no causal explanation.
What is the Problem of Quantum Causation? (With Sally Shrapnel.)
The Metaphysics of Multi-Fingered Time. (With Karim Thébault.)

Talks

Upcoming

The C Theory of Time + where & when

Previous Talks

Explaining Temporal Qualia. + venues

Causation and Time Reversal. + venues

The C Theory of Time. + venues

Causal Realism in Physics. + venues

Causality and Retrodiction in Quantum Mechanics. + venues

'Initial' Conditions and the Direction of Time. + venues

Time: Inside and Out. + venues

Supertemporal Ontology and the 'Triviality' Problem. + venues

Explaining Time and Time Explaining. + venues

Does time have a direction? + venues

Difference-Making and the Direction of Time. + venues

Non-Reductive Naturalism about Time Direction? + venues

On Some Problems with A- and B-Theoretic Models of Branching Spacetime. + venues

Towards a C Theory of Time. + venues