Christopher Oldfield

My professional life

I am a philosopher at King’s College London and Trinity College, Cambridge. I am a research associate of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. I work on foundational questions in the logic of scientific metaphysics, with a special interest in the history and interpretations of “physicalism”

Interests

I’m interested in the metaphysics of the manifest image, and ways of attending to things unseen in the scientific image. I’m interested in the use of organicist frameworks to reconcile a constructive empiricist philosophy of the object of mathematical physics with a realist philosophy of the objects of perception.

“…they suppose themselves to be above ‘metaphysics’ when in fact they are only a very little above it - being up to the neck in it.”

— Joseph Henry Woodger, Biological Principles (1929, p.246; II.V; §4)

Motivations

Besides my personal interests, I grieve the poverty of our public discourse, especially what passes for an understanding of the virtues of science and religion. I aspire to a more literate experience, and hope to remedy the wealth of myth-understanding at work, inside and outside the philosophy room.

“Vouloir faire tenir la nature dans la science, ce serait faire entrer le tout dans la partie”

— Henri Poincaré, Science et Méthode (1920, p.8; §1 Le Choix des Faits)

Inspirations

I learned from James Ladyman, Bas van Fraassen, and Hans Halvorson to think of naturalism and empiricism as ways of asking ontological questions, not to be confused with an answer or the only way of asking them. I learned from Peter Harrison, Alasdair MacIntrye, and Maria Rosa Antognazza the benefit to philosophy of the study of its history. I learned from Michael Friedman, Thomas Uebel, and Nancy Cartwright that the physicalist manifesto of the Vienna circle has been radically misunderstood; and from Janet Soskice, Peter van Inwagen, and Merold Westphal to value theologically motivated forms of anti-realism.

Portfolio

Photograph courtesy of 2022 workshop on Hylomorphism and Teleology at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

2022 Workshop on Nature’s Goals, Hylomorphism and Teleology at Corpus Christi College in the University of Cambridge. Photograph courtesy of the organisers.

  • Lecturer (Selected)

    • Science and Religion in a Global Context: The New Atheism (outline, audio, slides), University College London 2023-2024

    • The Limits of Philosophy, Science and Religion (with Stephen Law), University of Oxford 2022

    • The New Atheism (outline) St Mellitus College, University of Durham 2021-2024

    • Philosophical Ethics (syllabus)
      Fordham University London Center 2016-2019

    • Science and Faith (syllabus), Veritas Study Abroad, Roehampton University 2013-2015

    Tutor (Cambridge)

    • Polkinghorne’s Critical Realism (outline)

    • The Lewis-Anscombe Debate (outline)

    • Quantum Non-Locality & Relativity

    • Scientific Realism and Anti-Realism

    Teaching Assistant (London)

    • Science and Religion in a Global Context, UCL

    • Philosophy of Physics I: Space and Time, KCL

    • Metaphysics I, KCL

    • Philosophy of Psychology I, KCL

    • Philosophy of Religion, KCL

    • Philosophy of Mind, KCL

    • Why Middle Sized Matters to Science and Religion: William Simpson and I are guest-editing a Special Issue of the Q1 Journal, Scientia et Fides in Spring 2025. For details of the Call for Papers (Deadline: 30th December) see https://apcz.umk.pl/SetF/issue/view/2849

    • The Activity View (Postdoctoral Research Grant from the Fetzer Institute 2021-2024): I am developing the metaphilosophical view that what is at stake in debates about “-isms” (e.g. naturalism, physicalism, scientism) is the spirit of an activity, not the content of a theory

    • The Logic of the Special Composition Question(s), (Ph.D thesis submitted June 2021, examined Sep 2021, revised and resubmitted March 2023 during UCU marking boycott, awaiting reexamination): I recover the categorical significance of the first order plural logic of the special composition question(s), which has been lost in translation for decades.

    • Questions and Doubts as Modes of Holding Propositions, Newman, Wittgenstein and Hinge Epistemology, University College Dublin

    • Categorical Dualism (abstract, audio, q+a)
      The Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion, University of Oxford, November 2024

    • The Activity View of Physicalism (abstract, audio), Serious Metaphysics Group, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge, Nov 2024

    • When Are Fosters Parts? (audio, slides)
      The Metaphysics of Pregnancy and Beyond, King’s College London, October 2024

    • Naturalism without Content: Where Plantinga's Conflict Actually Lies (video)
      Institute of Philosophy, Ignatianum, University Cracow, Poland, September 2024

    • The Tragedy of Scientism in a Secular Age: MacIntyre, van Fraassen and Taylor (audio), European Conference of Science and Theology XX: Narrative, Croatia, August 2024

    • What Counts as a Life in the Science of Life? (audio, slides)
      Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe, University of Cambridge, May 2024

    • Hylomorphism and the Inverse Special Composition Question (video, slides), Middle Sized Matters, University of Oxford, May 2024

    • Mereology Naturalised? Not Yet (audio, slides), European Conference for the Foundations of Physics, University of Bristol, July 2023

    • The Attentional Stance: McGilchrist for Dennettians (audio, slides), International Society for Science and Religion, June 2023

    • The Priority of Parthood (audio, slides)
      Grounding and Metaphysical Explanation, University of Southampton, March 2024

    • Natural Philosophy (OUP), by Alister McGrath, Science and Christian Belief: 36/1:147-9 (2023)

      Inventing the Universe, by Alister McGrath, Science and Christian Belief 27/1 : 134-5 (2017)

    • Mind and Cosmos (OUP), by Thomas Nagel,
      Science and Christian Belief 28/2: 103-4 (2015)

    • Time and Relative Dimensions in Faith: Religion and Doctor Who, edited by A. Crome and J. McGrath, Church Times (13 June 2014)

    • Science, Religion and the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (OUP), by David Wilkinson, Theos Think Tank (14 August 2013)

    • 2024 On Praise of Love and Being in Love as an Ethical Idea, St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, (audio, slides)

    • 2024 The Metaphysics of Pregnancy: dispatches from the B.U.M.P. debates (Podcast, Slides), Program for Medicine, Spirituality and Religion, Yale University

    • 2023 Extended Q+A with Iain McGilchrist on The Matter with Things at The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion (online)

    • 2023 `Can A Rational Person Believe in Miracles?' (1 minute response to prompt) Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship

    • 2022 `The Selfish Green?’ (audio): panel on the religious roots of the Anthropocene (with Mazviita Chirimuuta, Timothy Howles, Hannah Malcolm), Greenbelt Festival

    • 2022 The Limits of Philosophy, Science and Religion (with Stephen Law), Department of Continuing Education, University of Oxford

    • 2021 Epiphany/January 6th (article), Christchurch London Broadcast

    • 2019 The Myth of Conflict (article), Christchurch London Broadcast

    • 2017 Science, Religion and the Ethics of Belief, (Evening Lecture) Institute of Physics: Northern Branch, University of Leeds

    • 2017 Science, Religion and the Business of Knowledge, (online) for Faraday short course, Department of Physics, University of Hull

    • 2016 Who’s Afraid of Naturalism? (article) Pulse magazine 22 (Spring 2016): 22-24

  • Fellowships

    • Postdoctoral Research Grant to develop ‘The Activity View’, Fetzer Institute (2021-2024)

    • Sorabji Scholarship, Department of Philosophy, King’s College London (2017-2018)

    • Doctoral Fellowship, Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics (2014-2015)

    Memberships

    • European Society for Science and Theology (2024- present)

    • British Society for the History of Philosophy (2023-present)

    • International Society for Science and Religion (2023-present)

    • British Society for the Philosophy of Science (2022-present)

    • Postdoctoral Society of Trinity College, Cambridge (2022- present)

    Employment

    • Research Associate, The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, Cambridge (2021-2024)

    • Adjunct Professor, London Faculty for Teaching, Fordham University (2016-2019)

Testimonials

“I am indebted to Christopher Oldfield of the Faraday Institute at the University of Cambridge for his illuminating grasp of the scientific, philosophical, and theological dimensions of reductionism.”

— Jeremy Begbie, Duke Divinity School and the University of Cambridge

“Rigorous, clearly explained technical concepts, always available and responsive to questions.”
“He’s great, absolutely wonderful. I think I want to take this subject for a Masters”
“Helpful, informative seminars, Chris went out of his way to help me when I was struggling”

— Anonymous KCL Staff and Student teaching evaluations (avg 4.6/5.0)

Contact

2024 Colloquium on Middle-Sized Matters for Science, Theology and Metaphysics at All Souls College, University of Oxford. Photograph courtesy of the organisers.