Jonathan Fay
PhD student in the Philosophy of Physics.
About me
Coming from a background in Natural Sciences and Physics, I transferred to philosophy of physics to pursue foundational questions more deeply and with more freedom.
I am currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Bristol, UK. My doctoral advisors are Karim Thébault and James Ladyman. Next April, I will be joining the Lichtenberg group for the History and Philosophy of Physics at the University of Bonn as a Heinrich Hertz Fellow.
Research interests
My interests in physics are mainly historical and philosophical. My research is centred around investigating the justification and consequences of relational theories, in particular of Mach’s hypothesis about the origin of inertia and its further development in the work of Einstein, Reissner, Sciama, Barbour and others. Recently I have been examining the historical arguments of Wallis and Delboeuf for replacing the parallel postulate in Euclidean geometry with the postulate of the reciprocal independence of shape and size. A central theme in my work is to carry forwards Kant’s project of distinguishing the pure and empirical parts of natural science.
Thesis
I seek to elucidate the philosophical root and justification of the principle or relative motion by engaging with historical controversies in the philosophy of space and geometry. From this standpoint, I explore the consequences of the principle when coupled with various hypotheses, especially those of Mach and Hans Reissner, the latter of which proposes to explain the existence of gravity by assigning it the necessary role of reconciling the law of inertia with the principle of relative motion.
Some influences
Henri Poincaré, Joseph Delboeuf, Ernst Mach, Dennis Sciama, Julian Barbour, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer
Talks
HPPRS (Summer), 25/06/2024
On the Reissner-Sciama hypothesis
Hybrid Bonn, Uni Bonn
BBLOC workshop, 2023
On the Relativity of Magnitudes
London, KCL
UoB Philsoc, 2023
A Shape Without a Size
Bristol, pub
BBLOC workshop, 2022
In Defence of Flat Space
London, KCL
PoP-grunch, 2021
Absolute Space Reconsidered
Online, Oxford Uni
PoP-grunch, 2020
Towards a Machian Theory of Gravity
Online, Oxford Uni
Relative Motion 