Chris Dorst

I'm an associate professor in the philosophy department at the University of Florida. Before that, I got my PhD from UNC Chapel Hill, and spent a year as a lecturer at Washington University in Saint Louis.

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My research interests are in philosophy of science, as well as some overlapping areas in philosophy of physics, metaphysics, and epistemology. Much of my work focuses on developing and defending a Humean theory of laws of nature, which I call the "Best Predictive System Account." Some of my recent publications focus on showing how that account can be used to (1) accommodate the role of laws in scientific explanation, (2) explain why the laws are held fixed in the evaluation of counterfactuals, (3) dissolve the quantum measurement problem, and (4) address the nomological status of the Past Hypothesis. Some of my current projects explore topics such as (5) how to understand productive laws in relativistic spacetimes, (6) which values of the GRW collapse parameters should count as "philosophically unsatisfactory," (7) what the Humean should say about quantum ontology, (8) how to understand talk of the laws "governing," and (9) what the epistemic advantage of Humeanism amounts to (if anything).

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I teach classes on a range of subjects, from Logic to Bioethics to Philosophy of Physics. In Fall 2024, I am teaching Philosophy of Space and Time and Graduate Proseminar. You can find syllabi and evals from past courses on my teaching page.