Cardiff University

Graduate Student, School of English, Communication, and Philosophy

PhD Candidate

About

I'm an AHRC funded PhD student in the department of Philosophy in Cardiff University.

My thesis, starting from a critical examination of the 'science and religion' field, aims at envisioning the possibility of reconciling the analytic and the continental traditions on the ground of philosophy of science.

I aim to criticize the theological appropriation of Critical Realism by the 'science and religion' scholars, via an employment of the philosophy of Alain Badiou and Quentin Meillassoux and, more in general, through a committment to the realist positions of contemporary Speculative Realism. My analysis will attempt, in particular, to link Badiou's project with structural realism in analytic philosophy of science and structuralism in philosophy of mathematics and to position Meillassoux's philosophy of contingency within the debate regarding the metaphysical status of 'laws of nature' and their role in the structure of both scientific naturalism and theological apologetics.

My main philosophical influences are within XX century continental philosophy and analytic philosophy of science. In particular I am interested in: the recent movement of speculative realism; the mathematical ontology of Alain Badiou; the work of Jacques Derrida; and philosophy of science and mathematics (analytic and continental alike).

Other interests of mine include the history of science, physics (and philosophy of physics), cosmology, the study of religions and, more generally, intellectual history. I am occasionally interested in philosophical implications/explications of technology (including artificial intelligence and 'transhumanism').

Since my research deals with science as well as with philosophy I felt necessary to have some formal education in a scientific field. I have therefore achieved a Certificate in Higher Education in Astronomy, from the department of Physics and Astronomy of University College London. I plan to pursue scientific education further, but time and economic constraints force me to postpone it to the -hopefully near- future.

I have also spent some time studying Buddhist Madhyamaka metaphysics (Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti), and epistemology (Dignaga) and I am still convinced that an healthy amount of proper comparative work (capable or overcoming crypto-orientalistic prejudices towards non-western 'philosophy') would enrich the current philosophical debate.

I am co-editor of the new 'Speculations' Journal, journal of Speculative Realism.

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