Matt Farr is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department. Before joining the University of Cambridge, Matt was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Queensland (2014–2017) and the University of Sydney (2013–2014), and was awarded his PhD in Philosophy by the University of Bristol in 2013.
Research interests
Matt's research covers foundational issues in the philosophy of science and metaphysics. The main focus of his work is on philosophical problems concerning time and causality, and their role in the sciences, with particular focus on the philosophy of physics and cognitive science. His wider interests include the relationship between science and metaphysics, causal inference and its relationship to kinds of scientific evidence, the interpretation of quantum mechanics, and the concept of personal identity over time.
Journal articles
'The Three Times Problem', Frontiers in Psychology, 14 (2023).
'Conventionalism About Time Direction', Synthese, 200: 1-21 (2022).
'C-Theories of Time: On the adirectionality of time', Philosophy Compass (2020)
'Causation and Time Reversal', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (2020), vol 71, pp. 177–204.
'Explaining Temporal Qualia', European Journal for Philosophy of Science (2020), 10:8.
'Temporal Experience, Temporal Passage and the Cognitive Sciences' [With S. Baron, J. Cusbert, M. Kon & K. Miller], Philosophy Compass 10 (2015), pp. 560–571.
'A Relic of a Bygone Age? Causation, Time Symmetry and the Directionality Argument' [With A. Reutlinger], Erkenntnis 78 (2013), pp. 215–235.
'On A- and B-Theoretic Elements of Branching Spacetimes', Synthese 188 (2012), pp. 85–116.
Book chapters
'Perceiving direction in directionless time', in Understanding Human Time, ed. K. M. Jaszczolt, Oxford University Press. (2023).
'What's so special about initial conditions? Understanding the past hypothesis in directionless time', in Rethinking the Concept of Laws of Nature, ed. Yemima Ben-Menahem, Springer. (2022).
'Methods in Science and Metaphysics' [With M. Ivanova], in Miller and Bliss (eds) Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics (2020).
Popular articles
'The physics of time doesn’t contradict experience', IAI News (2023)
'The ABC of Time', Aeon (2019).
Reviews
'Review of Yemima Ben-Menahem's Causation in Science', Mind (2021).
'Review of Mathias Frisch's Causal Reasoning in Physics', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (2016), 67(4), pp. 1207-1213.
'Review of Tim Maudlin's Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time', Philosophy in Review (2015), Vol 35, No 4.
