Scope and topics

The workshop brings together theoretical physicists working on spacetime theories, cosmology and quantum gravity, and interested in foundational issues, with philosophers of science studying conceptual aspects of spacetime physics and of quantum gravity.

The aim is to stimulate debate and exchanges between physicists and philosophers, to inform philosophical reflection on the nature of space and time with the latest ideas and results of (quantum) spacetime physics, and to better direct current research on (quantum) spacetime physics thanks to the modern philosophical reflection on the same issues.

Among the many topics to be discussed at the workshop are:

  • the fundamental picture of space and time suggested by various quantum gravity approaches
  • philosophy of cosmology
  • the nature of time’s arrow
  • the disappearance of space and time in quantum gravity
  • the conceptual issues raised by the idea of “emergence” of space and/or time
  • the substantivalist vs relationalist debate about spacetime, also in light of quantum gravity approaches
  • the historic and philosophic roots of current ideas on space and time
  • the implications of quantum mechanical indeterminism on our picture of space and time
  • how quantum gravity helps with or, on the contrary, make worse the conceptual problems of quantum mechanics