I’m a philosopher (assistant professor at the University of Geneva).
ACADEMIC CV (May 2024)
Most of my research interests are in theoretical philosophy (philosophy of physics, philosophy of science, metaphysics), mainly on time and space, modality, mereology and material objects but I also occasionally branch out in philosophy of mind and comparative philosophy. I think of myself as a natural philosopher whose goal is to guess how nature is fundamentally like, according to our best physics. I hold a PhD in philosophy from the University of Rennes, a habilitation in philosophy of science from the University of Bern and the French professor qualification in sections 17 and 72. I’m currently supervising a Swiss NSF Starting Grant (2023-2028). The project ‘Space, Time and Causation in Quantum Gravity‘ aims at examining the role causation could play in explaining the emergence of spacetime in some approaches to quantum gravity.
After a PhD in metaphysics of time at the University of Rennes, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Space and Time after Quantum Gravity project (conducted at the University of Illinois at Chicago and at the University of Geneva) and then a research associate in the project To and Fro: Scientific Metaphysics at Physics’s Frontiers in Geneva. Then, I supervised an Ambizione project at the University of Geneva on the metaphysics of quantum gravity with a focus on mereology.I am also a member of the Geneva Symmetry Group. My books and a selection of articles are accessible below; all my articles are listed and accessible via a dedicated page in the menu.
Short version, please get in touch for the long version.
EMAIL CONTACT: baptiste.lebihan at unige.ch
Qu’est-ce que le temps ?
Affiliations
- Beyond Spacetime
- Geneva Symmetry Group
- Geneva Centre for Philosophy of Science
- Atlantic Centre for Philosophy (Rennes)
- Groupe d’étude en métaphysique (Collège de France)
Selected publications
- Super-Relationism: Combining Eliminativism about Objects and Relationism about Spacetime, Philosophical Studies 173 (8): 2152-2178, 2016. (Published paper / draft)
- Causal Theories of Spacetime, Noûs, forthcoming, with Sam Baron. (Draft)
- Composing Spacetime, Journal of Philosophy, 119 (1): 33-54, 2022, with Sam Baron. (Draft)
- Trouble on the Horizon for Presentism, Philosophers’ Imprint, 2023, 23(1), with Sam Baron. (Open access paper, Draft)
- What Does the World Look Like according to Superdeterminism?, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, forthcoming, with Augustin Baas. (Draft)
- Quantum Gravity and Mereology: Not So Simple, Philosophical Quarterly, 2022, 72(1), with Sam Baron. (Published paper, Draft)
- From Spacetime to Space and Time: A Reply to Markosian, Analysis 80 ( 3): 456–462, 2020. (Published paper / draft)