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Richard Healey

Professor of Philosophy
Ph.D., Harvard University, 1978
Philosophy of Science, Metaphysics
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Richard Healey (Ph.D., Harvard), Professor of Philosophy, works mainly in the philosophy of science and metaphysics. One aim of his research in the philosophy of physics is to shed light on metaphysical topics such as holism, realism and causation. In The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics he developed an approach toward the understanding of quantum theory, according to which the theory portrays a nonseparable world. His recent book, Gauging What's Real , locates a different kind of nonseparability in contemporary gauge theories.

Books

  • The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics: An Interactive Interpretation (Cambridge, 1989)
  • Gauging What's Real: the Conceptual Foundations of Contemporary Gauge Theories (Oxford, 2007)

Selected Publications

  • "Symmetry and the Scope of Scientific Realism", in Demopoulos, W. and Pitowsky, I. eds. Physical Theory and its Interpretation Kluwer, 2006
  • "Gauge Theories and Holisms", Studies In History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 35 , 2004
  • "Change Without Change, and How to Observe it in General Relativity", Synthese 141 , 2004
  • "Can Physics Coherently Deny the Reality of Time?", in Craig Callender, ed. Time, Reality and Experience ,Cambridge, 2002
  • "On the Reality of Gauge Potentials", Philosophy of Science 68 , 2001
  • "The Meaning of Quantum Theory" in The Great Ideas Today, 1998 , Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.
  • "Holism and Nonseparability in Physics", entry in the Stanford Electronic Encyclopedia of Philosophy , on line at http://plato.stanford.edu since 8/99
  • "'Modal' Interpretations, Decoherence and the Quantum Measurement Problem", in Quantum Measurement: Beyond Paradox (Cambridge, 1998)
  • "La Metaphysique de la Vacuite" in Le Vide: Univers du Tout et du Rien , eds. E. Gunzig and S. Diner (Revue de l'Universite de Bruxelles: editions Complexes,1998)  (English language version entitled "The Metaphysics of Emptiness")
  • "Locality and Separability in the Aharonov-Bohm Effect" , Philosophy of Science 67 , 1997
  • "Substance, Modality and Spacetime", Erkenntnis , 1995
  • "Nonseparability and Causal Explanation" Studies in History and Philosophy of the Physical Sciences 25 1994
  • "Chasing Quantum Causes: How Wild is the Goose?" Philosophical Topics, Spring 1992
  • "Holism and Nonseparability"  Journal of Philosophy, August 1991

 

Books Edited

  • Quantum Measurement: Beyond Paradox, edited with Geoffrey Hellman (U. Minnesota Press, 1998).
  • The Authority of Reason, by Jean Hampton (Cambridge, 1998).
  • Reduction, Time, and Reality: Studies in the Philosophy of the Natural Sciences (Cambridge, 1981).