U of ADepartment of Philosophy
Richard Healey

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 develops an approach toward the understanding of quantum theory, according to which the theory portrays a nonseparable world. He is currently exploring ways in which quantum field theories, including gauge theories, involve a similar nonseparability.


BOOK
  • The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics: An Interactive Interpretation (Cambridge, 1989)

RECENT ARTICLES

  • "Change Without Change, and How to Observe it in General Relativity", by Richard Healey and Jenann Ismael
  • Can Physics Coherently Deny the Reality of Time? (draft of forthcoming paper)
  • "On the Reality of Gauge Potentials", entry in the Philosophy of Science Archive
  • "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
  • "'Modal' Interpretations, Decoherence and the Quantum Measurement Problem", in Quantum Measurement: Beyond Paradox (Cambridge, 1998)
  •  "La Métaphysique de la Vacuité" in Le Vide: Univers du Tout et du Rien, eds. E. Gunzig and S. Diner (Revue de l'Université de Bruxelles: Éditions 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, 25.1, 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).

Contact Professor Healey at:

Department of Philosophy
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona 85721-0027

rhealey AT u DOT arizona DOT edu

Social Science
Bldg. Rm 213
PO Box 210027
Tucson, Arizona
85721-0027


Phone: (520) 621-5045
Fax: (520) 621-9559