The Radboud Centre for Natural Philosophy (RCNP) is dedicated to research at the intersection of mathematical physics, philosophy of physics, and history of physics. It is a collaboration of three institutes and centres at uu77: the Institute for Mathematics, Astrophysics and Particle Physics (IMAPP), the Institute for Science in Society (ISiS), and the Center for the History of Philosophy of Science (CHPS). In January 2025, the RCNP celebrated its opening as one of the major centres in the with an international two-day conference (you can read more about the opening .
In this news item we would like to highlight the contributions of members of the Institute for Science in Society (ISiS) that are part of the RCNP and give you an overview over their research projects. We’ll proceed alphabetically.
Henk de Regt is full professor of philosophy of natural sciences. His long-term philosophical research project on the nature of scientific understanding has mainly focused on the historical development of criteria for understanding in physics. A recent publication, ‘’, outlines his account of scientific understanding and applies it to novel domains. He is currently investigating the impact of AI on scientific understanding, especially in physics.
Kian Salimkhani is assistant professor of philosophy of science. His work focuses on issues at the intersection of philosophy of physics, metaphysics, and general philosophy of science – e.g., spacetime theories and theories of quantum gravity, fundamentality and emergence, progress, and unification. He has recently published several papers on the philosophy of time, e.g., on . Currently, he is especially interested in concepts of fundamentality as ontological dependence or determination relations.
Martin Voggenauer is a postdoctoral researcher in the philosophy of science, mainly working on metaphysical topics. Recently, he has published on the and the problem of the direction of time. In his current research project, he seeks to connect the debates on fundamentality in the philosophy of physics and analytic metaphysics. Specifically, he revisits the analogy between grounding and causation and investigates how a naturalized concept of grounding could best be analyzed.
Karla Weingarten is a PhD student in the philosophy of physics, working mainly on quantum field theory. In her PhD project, she works on applying philosophy of science themes, including modeling and scientific understanding, to better grasp effective field theories. In the past, she has also worked on the use of Feynman diagrams in contemporary physics practice.
All researchers would be happy to supervise bachelor and master theses on these or related research topics.