Before coming to Pittsburgh, Earman taught at UCLA, The Rockefeller University, and the University of Minnesota. He is the author of A Primer on Determinism; World Enough and Spacetime: Absolute vs. Relational Theories of Space and Time; Bayes or Bust: A Critical Examination of Bayesian Confirmation Theory; and Bangs, Crunches, Hume's Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles , Whimpers and Shrieks: Singularities and Acausalities in Relativistic Spacetimes. His research interests include the history and philosophy of physics, and the general philosophy of science.
Selected Courses Taught
- Introduction to the Philosophy of Science
- Foundations of Quantum Field Theory
- Foundations of General Relativity and Relativistic Cosmology
Professional Memberships
- Former President of the Philosophy of Science Association
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences
Working Paper
- "The Unruh Effect"
- PhD, Philosophy, Princeton University, 1968
Education & Training
Representative Publications
- “The ‘Past Hypothesis’: Not Even False,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 37 (2006): 399-430.
- “In the Beginning, At the End, and All in Between: Cosmological Aspects of Time,” F. Stadler and M. Stöltzner (eds.), Time and History: Proceedings of the 28th International Ludwig Wittgenstein Symposium (Ontos-Verlag, 2006).
- “Aspects of Determinism in Modern Physics” in J. Butterfield and J. Earman (eds.), Handbook of the Philosophy of Science. Philosophy of Physics (Elsevier, 2007).
- “Do the Laws of Physics Forbid the Operation of Time Machines?” (coauthored with Christopher Smeenk and Christopher Wüthrich), Synthese, in press.
- “Self-Adjointness: Implications for Determinism and the Classical-Quantum Correspondence,” Synthese, in press.
- "Superselection for Philosophers," Erkenntnis, in press.