Christopher Oldfield

Curriculum Vitae

My professional life

I am an interdisciplinary philosopher specialising in metaphysics. I have held a range of teaching and research positions, e.g. at The Faraday Institute for Science Religion and the Faculty of Philosophy in the University of Cambridge, Fordham University, the University of Hertfordshire, King’s College London, St Mellitus College, the University of Oxford, and University College London. I also offer bespoke courses of 1:1 tuition and guidance on a wide range of subjects.

My philosophical research addresses foundational questions in the logic and practice of scientific metaphysics. I have special interests in the history and interpretation(s) of “naturalism” and “physicalism” in the philosophy of mind.

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

Interests

“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)

Motivations

I aspire to be a philosopher, a lover of wisdom and understanding. I once heard Brian Leftow say the love of wisdom can take the forms of desire and delight. I desire to understand much that I do not, and delight to understand what little I can (or at least to find the least stupid thing we can say about a given subject).

I also grieve the poverty of public discourse at present, especially what passes for an understanding of the virtues (or the vices) of science and religion in our time. I aspire to promote a more literate experience, to remedy the wealth of myth-understandings at work, inside and outside the philosophy room

“…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)

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 MacIntyre and Maria Rosa Antognazza of the deep benefit to philosophy of the study of its history. I learned from Michael Friedman and Thomas Uebel that the physicalist manifesto of the Vienna Circle has been radically misunderstood; and from Janet Soskice, Peter van Inwagen and Merold Westphal how to think through confessions of faith, bewilderment and suspicion. I learned from Matthew Soteriou how much flows from the adoption of a temporal perspective, and how revisionary projects in metaphysics, well motivated in the service of descriptive projects, can quickly become unhinged.

Inspirations

Stock photograph of some magnificent Noctilucent Clouds. I once beheld something similar in the midnight sky on the Suffolk coast. Brighter than Venus it was. The evening was calm, the air so still, but for the smoke of the fire. We sat there, bewildered, between the embers and the stars.

“Better real confusion than false clarity; better real darkness than misleading light.”

— Fr. Thomas Hopko

Portfolio

Curicculum Vitae (PDF and online)
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.

Testimonials

2024 presentation on ‘Thinking with Assent while Living with Doubts: at Newman House, University College Dublin. Photograph courtesy of the organisers of the Wittgenstein, Newman and Hinge Epistemology network.

“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)

“I wanted to thank you for your time and instruction. Science and Religion is in my top 3 favourite courses I have ever taken and gave me much to ponder after eery class. I really enjoyed […] how much attention you put into your lectures.”

“I just wanted to let you know […] how much I enjoyed our weekly seminars. You made the conversations so informative, digestible, and interesting! Truly made me more interested in the course, I looked forward to it every week.”

— Unsolicited UCL student emails from the 2024 HPS/BASC programme

“Oldfield builds the case that religion was seen as a ‘tool of oppression’ used by the ruling class. He then asks a pertinent question, which is not answered positively, but left hanging [!]. Oldfield’s statement is highly irresponsible.“

— Unsolicited review of my contribution to the ‘God and the Big Bang’ unit on language from the authors of ‘Deceitful Religious Education’ at creation.com!

“A confession of bewilderment is not a presentation of an argument for the thesis that anyone else should be bewildered by whatever it is that the speaker finds bewildering.”

— Peter van Inwagen [2011] 2014 Relational vs Constituent Ontologies; in Existence: Essays on Ontology, p.210

“The image is not a certain meaning, expressed by the director, but the entire world, reflected as in a drop of water”

— Andrei Tarkovsky (1986) Sculpting in Time, p.110

Our little lives/life together

“Il faut cultiver notre jardin” - Voltaire. 2024 Photograph courtesy of Jude Aytoun (Passio). Vibes have been rumoured to include The Soil by David Benjamin Blower, The Garden by Bobby Mcferrin, A Garden Disciple by Willie Jennings, Praying by Mary Oliver, Staying Power by Jeanne Murray Walker, and Beats In Abundance

Contact

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

“Philosophy has many tasks, yet in our age the task of bracketing and seeing, of uncovering our forgotten sense of the cosmos, and of our lives therein, may be one of the most urgent."

— Erazim Kohák (1984) The Embers and the Stars: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Moral Sense of Nature, p.26; chapter 1: Theoria