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Michael Epperson
Curriculum Vitae
I study the historical and philosophical foundations of physics, with an emphasis on quantum theory and its rehabilitation of ancient Hellenic ideas about the relationship between mathematics and nature. (Ph.D. University of Chicago 2003)
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Courses & Programs
PROGRAM IN HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
In collaboration with the Department of History, Sacramento State’s HPS Program is a joint initiative bridging the College of Arts and Letters with the Consortium for Philosophy and the Natural Sciences. This partnership leverages CPNS’s international team of research fellows, strong research and publication record (including articles in Nature, Foundations of Physics, and other top journals, as well as numerous books from publishers including Oxford University Press, Springer, etc.) and grant funding (over $1 million since 2008) into innovative courses, student research internships, advising, and programmatic offerings for Sacramento State students.
HIST 104A: HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF ANCIENT SCIENCE
This course examines the historical foundations and evolution of ancient Greek physics, mathematics, and medicine, from the natural philosophy of the Presocratics to post-Aristotelian thought. Particular emphasis is given to the development of formal propositional logic and formalized inductive and deductive reasoning and their effect on the progression of Hellenic and Hellenistic physics, medicine, and mathematics. Along the way, we explore the surprising ways in which key aspects of these ancient Greek conceptual frameworks have been reincorporated into current scientific theories, including quantum physics and cosmology.
HIST 107: HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES
In this course, we study the historical evolution of the conceptual foundations of modern physics, including the rise and fall of the 17th century mechanical paradigm and the subsequent rise of field theory (and its rehabilitation of the ancient Hellenic concept of purely mathematical objects that are physically significant). We trace this evolution from its origins in ancient natural philosophy, through the medieval and early modern periods and the Enlightenment, up to the physics of today--the special and general theories of relativity and the latest interpretations of quantum mechanics.
HIST 199: SPECIAL PROBLEMS IN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
This is a 3 unit seminar in which students develop a thesis focused on the philosophical and historical foundations and implications of a particular scientific theory or practice.This course is part of the CPNS HPS Student Research Initiative.
List of previous research topics for this course.
More information on the HPS Program
Research
I study the historical and philosophical foundations of physics, with an emphasis on quantum theory and its rehabilitation of ancient Hellenic ideas about the relationship between mathematics and nature. I have been Principal Investigator on four grant-funded projects:
Principal Investigators: Michael Epperson (CPNS-CSUS) and Elias Zafiris (Univ. of Athens). 2014-2017. Supported by a grant from the Fetzer-Franklin Fund (Grant D34C101) and the Parmenides Foundation - $181,200
Principal Investigator: Michael Epperson. Co-Investigators: Elias Zafiris, Senior Research Fellow in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, University of Athens; Stuart Kauffman, Research Professor, Complex Systems Center, University of Vermont; Timothy Eastman, NASA-Goddard; Phillip Stamp, Professor of Physics, University of British Columbia; Karim Bschir, ETH Zurich; David Finkelstein, Professor Emeritus of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology; Roland Omnès, Laboratoire de Physique Théorique Université de Paris XI, (Unité Mixte de Recherche, CNRS). 2010-2013. Supported by a grant from the Fetzer-Franklin Fund (Grant D21C62) - $572,760
Principal Investigator: Michael Epperson. Co-Investigators: David Finkelstein, Georgia Institute of Technology; Henry P. Stapp, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Timothy Eastman, NASA-Goddard. 2008-2009. Supported by a grant from the Fetzer-Franklin Fund (Grant D11C36) - $209,000.
Principal Investigator: Michael Epperson. Co-Investigators: David Finkelstein, Department of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology; Henry P. Stapp, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Timothy Eastman, NASA-Goddard. 2007. Supported by a grant from CTNS-STARS and the John Templeton Foundation - $20,000
Books
Foundations of Relational Realism: A Topological Approach to Quantum Mechanics and the Philosophy of Nature
Lexington Books / Rowman & Littlefield, New York, 2013
Quantum Mechanics and the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead
Fordham University Press, New York, 2004
2nd ed. 2012
Physics and Speculative Philosophy: Potentiality in Modern Science
De Gruyter, Berlin / New York, 2016
Selected Articles & Essays
"The Dipolar Relation of the Abstract and the Concrete in Physical Geometry" in The Architectonic Weave: Unraveling the Architectonic Weave of Physical Geometry. Elias Zafiris, ed. TU Wien Academic Press (forthcoming, 2026)
"The Creative Universe." Institute of Art and Ideas News, Issue 96, June 11, 2021
"Relational Realism and the Ontogenetic Universe: Subject, Object, and Ontological Process in Quantum Mechanics." Angelaki 25:3 (2020)
"Taking Heisenberg's Potentia Seriously." International Journal of Quantum Foundations, 4:2 (2018) 158-172 (with Stuart Kauffman and Ruth Kastner.) See also Tom Siegfried's review article on this paper in Science News.
"The Common Sense of Quantum Theory: Exploring the Internal Relational Structure of Self-Organization in Nature." Coding as Literacy. Ed. Vera Bühlmann and Ludger Hovestadt. Birkhäuser (2015)
For a complete list of research project publications, click here.
Documentary Film
The 11th Day: Crete 1941 is a documentary film featuring eyewitness accounts from survivors of the Battle of Crete during World War II. The film was created by producer-director Christos Epperson and writer-producer Michael Epperson, and funded by Alex Spanos. Among the eyewitnesses interviewed are British SOE operative and famous travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor, along with George Doundoulakis, and Cretan Resistance hero George Tzitzikas. The film also includes historical commentary and analysis by Chase Brandon of the CIA and Professor Andre Gerolymatos of Simon Fraser University.
Click here for more details about the film
Selected Invited Presentations
December 13, 2025
Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University - China
“From Classical Object Realism to Whiteheadian Relational Realism: The Mutual Implication of Actual and Potential in Event-Ontological Quantum Mechanics” - Conference: “Science and the Postmodern World: A Centennial Reflection on Whitehead’s Science and the Modern World”
October 15, 2025
Sharif University of Technology, Iran
“On First Principles and Ultimate Ontological Dependencies in Quantum Mechanics” - Sharif International School on Theism: East and West - Theism and Natural Science
September 17, 2025
University of Staffordshire / British Society for Phenomenology, UK
“Relational Realism and the Ontogenetic Universe: Subject, Object, and Ontological Process in Quantum Mechanics” - Bill Ross Memorial Symposium - Deleuzian Cosmologies
August 4-7, 2025
University of Virginia School of Medicine - Division of Perceptual Studies
"Insights on the Relation of Body to Mind via the Categorical Relations of Quantum Mechanics: Local & Global and Actual & Potential"
October 28, 2022
Loyola Marymount University & Greek Consulate General in Los Angeles
Presentation of the ethics and warfare documentary film The 11th Day: Crete 1941. Written and co-produced by Michael Epperson, the film chronicles The Battle of Crete and the civilian Cretan resistance against Hitler’s occupation forces in World War II. The film was presented, with introductory remarks, by Ioannis Stamatekos, Consul General for Greece. Loyola Marymount University, McIntosh Center, 8-10 pm.
July 10, 2021
Cobb Institute, Claremont Graduate University
Symposium panelist: "Untying the Gordian Knot - Process, Reality, and Context"
September 26-28, 2019
Keynote Talk, Stony Brook University
“Subject, Object, and Ontological Process in Quantum Mechanics” - 2nd Annual Phenomenological Approaches to Physics Conference
(Program)
August 21-22, 2019
Santa Fe Institute
"Dipolar Duality: Actuality and Potentiality in Quantum Mechanics" - Thirty Years of Complex Thinking: A Celebration of Stuart Kauffman’s Contributions to the Field of Complex Systems
June 17-20, 2018
Eighteenth Annual Biosemiotics Gathering - UC Berkeley
"Quantum Origins of Ontic Emergence"
(Program)
November 13-15, 2017
Arizona State University - School of Arts, Media, and Engineering
“Contextual Measurement in Quantum Mechanics: Inducing the Objective Global from the Subjective Local” - Beyond Complexity: The Biosocial After the Digital
April 19-23, 2017
Arizona State University - School of Arts, Media, and Engineering
Ontogenesis Process Group Inaugural Workshop - Santa Fe, New Mexico. Stuart Kauffman; Sha Xin Wei, Arts, Media & Engineering, ASU; Michael Epperson, History and Philosophy of Science, CSUS-CPNS; Cary Wolfe, Cultural Theory, Rice University; Philip Thurtle, Comp. History of Ideas, Univ. of Washington; Adam Nocek, Arts, Media & Engineering, ASU
January 13-16, 2016
Arizona State University - School of Arts, Media, and Engineering
"Quantum Mechanics + Category Theory After Deleuze and Badiou"
June 4-7, 2015
Pomona College
10th International Whitehead Conference: "Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization" - 4 invited talks: [1] Section IV, Track 2 “The Ontology of Contextualized Potentiality: Whiteheadian Internal Relations in Quantum Mechanics”; [2] Section IV, Track 7: "The Behavioral, Neural, and Quantum Correlates of Conscious Experience: A Whiteheadian Look at Tononi and Koch’s Integrated Information Theory"; [3] Section II, Track 1: “A Mereotopological Bridging of Prehension and Extension in Whiteheadian Cosmology”; [4] Section IX, Track 4: “The Whiteheadian Path from Quantum Physics to Psychology”
May 22-24, 2014
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich
"The Ontology and Epistemology of Internal Relations: Bridging the Physical and Conceptual in Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Information" - 5th Metalithikum Klausur Symposium: "Computation as Literacy: Self Organizing Maps"
May 22-24, 2014
University of California, Davis
"Potentiality and Contextuality in Quantum Mechanics" - Symposium: "Quantity/Quality: The Problem of Measure in Philosophy and Science"
October 8, 2013
Institute of Philosophy, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
"Potentiality and Contextuality in Quantum Mechanics: The Relational Realist Approach”
For a complete list of invited talks, click here.
Contact
Michael Epperson
Research Professor & Director
Consortium for Philosophy and the Natural Sciences
History and Philosophy of Science Program
California State University, Sacramento
Campus Office
Benicia Hall #1012
916-287-8062
epperson@csus.edu
Mailing Address
Consortium for Philosophy and the Natural Sciences
Department of History
MS 6059
California State University, Sacramento
6000 J Street Sacramento, CA 95819