Center for Philosophy and the Natural Sciences - California State University Sacramento

"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order."
~ Alfred North Whitehead

Book Spotlight: CPNS Senior Fellow
Stuart Kauffman

Stuart A. Kauffman is the founding director of the Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics and a professor of biological sciences, physics, and astronomy at the University of Calgary. He is Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, a MacArthur Fellow, and an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute, of which he was a

founding member. His books include: The Origins of Order and At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity.


		Book Spotlight: CPNS Senior Fellow Roland Omnès Our work at CPNS is driven by recent advances in the understanding of physics that suggest that the foundations of mathematics are encompassed by the laws of nature. The philosophical relationship between mathematics and the natural sciences is the subject of Converging Realities, the latest work by quantum theorist Roland Omnès, one of the leading thinkers on the subject. Based on a simple but powerful idea, it shows that the axioms needed for the mathematics used in physics can also generate practically every field of contemporary pure mathematics.

Michael Epperson - Director & Principal Investigator

The Center for Philosophy and the Natural Sciences at California State University Sacramento engages in research and scholarship that explores the philosophical implications underlying recent innovations in contemporary science, including those occurring in the areas of quantum physics, cosmology, and the study of complex adaptive systems. This exploration is, in part, a speculative philosophical enterprise intended to contribute to the framework of a suitable bridge by which scientific and philosophical concepts might not only be cross-joined, but mutually supported.

Mission Statement

Research Fellows

Foundations of Relational Realism: Logical Causality, Intrinsic Decoherence, and a Category-Theoretic Mereotopological Model of Quantum Spacetime (2010-2013)

Principal Investigator: Michael Epperson, Department of Philosophy, California State University, Sacramento. Co-Investigators: Elias Zafiris, Senior Research Fellow in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, University of Athens; Philip Stamp, Professor, Condensed Matter Theory, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia; Stuart Kauffman, Research Professor, Complex Systems Center, University of Vermont.

Funded by a grant from

October 5-8, 2011 - European Philosophy of Science Association
Presentation: "Quantum Decoherence: A View from Topology" - University of Athens

June 15-20, 2011 - ETH Zurich
Workshop: "Quantum Relational Realism: Mereotopology, Logical Implication, and Internal Relation in Quantum Mechanics as Represented via Sheaf-theoretic Boolean Covering Systems"
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - Zurich

February 17, 2011 - Library of Congress
Symposium: "The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead" - Talk by Michael Epperson: "Logical Causality in Whitehead's Philosophy of Nature" John W. Kluge Center - Washington, D.C.

October 19-23 - University of Athens
Workshop: "Applying Sheaf/Category Theory to Quantum Mechanics: Logical Implication And The Internal Relation Of The Local To The Global In Quantum Mechanical Predication"

The Center for Philosophy and the Natural Sciences
California State University, Sacramento
6000 J Street
Sacramento, CA 95819-6033