| Research Professor |
Center for Philosophy and the Natural Sciences
College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
California State University, Sacramento |
courses
Philosophy 125: Philosophy of Science
California State University Sacramento
Philosophy of science involves more than just the study of the philosophical problems inherent in the nature and methodology of scientific reasoning, which is one of the topics we will explore in this course; it also involves the study of the conceptual foundations, presuppositions, and implications of the theories that form the core framework by which the physical world is understood by the natural sciences in general. Whatever one might say of this framework, in the practice of modern science, it is understood to be physically causal, conceptually logical, and mathematically describable--yet impossible to reduce fully to any of these features. This provides an important clue to their relationship in both the philosophy and practice of modern science, and is a central topic in this course.
Philosophy 27: Early Modern Philosophy
California State University Sacramento
In this course we will examine the ways in which the scientific and political innovations of 16th, 17th, and 18th century Europe both influenced and were influenced by the rationalist and empiricist philosophical traditions that competed and flourished during this period. We will study the works of several philosophers working within these two traditions as they struggled to make sense of the scientific and social revolutions sweeping through their world; and we will see how their work would, in turn, help shape these revolutions, even as they continue to evolve today. One focus of the course, then, will be to examine the ways in which these philosophical traditions have maintained their relevance and influence in our own millennium as 21st century science struggles with its most difficult questions yet.
Our survey will entail a careful reading and critique of the metaphysical and epistemological schemes developed by key philosophers of the early modern period, beginning with the work of Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes and concluding with Kant and his revolutionary synthesis of the rationalist and empiricist worldviews.
Philosophy 25: Ancient Philosophy
California State University Sacramento
In this course we will examine the origin of Western philosophy by carefully surveying ancient Hellenic theories of knowledge and existence. Our survey will begin with the Milesian School, continue through the pre-Socratic philosophers and Plato, and conclude with the philosophy of Aristotle.
Philosophy 131: Philosophy of Religion
California State University Sacramento
To what extent do religious prescriptions for 'how things should be' derive from philosophical descriptions of 'how things are?' If natural philosophy is understood to be descriptive of nature, and religion is understood as intending to be explicative of nature (and explicative of the descriptions given by philosophy), then the relationship among philosophy, science, and religion might be mutually illuminative. This course will examine this relationship from the standpoint of metaphysics as a bridge between philosophical theology and natural philosophy.
Philosophy 2: Philosophical Ethics
California State University Sacramento
When we strive to live as ethical individuals, or struggle to promote a more ethical society, upon what foundation do we secure our principles? Do we primarily use reason to deduce them from some deeper, more fundamental set of philosophical principles, themselves similarly deduced? Or do we primarily inherit our ethical principles from theological tradition as revealed truths rather than reasoned truths? If the answer is both, then where and how do these methods intersect? Can 'revealed' ethical principles be analyzed rationally? Do 'reasoned' philosophical principles involve faith-based presuppositions (e.g., belief that the universe is truly a 'reasonable' and 'objectively real' place)?
In this course we will examine these and related questions by surveying the works of several major thinkers in philosophical ethics, from the Classical and Hellenistic periods through the 20th Century. Along the way, we'll apply our analyses to several present-day ethical controversies which we will examine within the context of our readings.
Philosophy 101: Ethics & Social Issues
California State University Sacramento
In this course, we begin with the notion that our ethical principles and the opinions and actions they generate can and should be rationally justified. We will then explore and critique several competing systems of thought by which we might do so, particularly as regards the moral controversies that divide society today, such as abortion, the death penalty, affirmative action, sexism, war and peace. Our discussions will emphasize an analytical and critical discussion of those philosophical theories and competing viewpoints most popular in contemporary American culture.
Philosophy 6: Introduction to Philosophy
California State University Sacramento
If you are tempted to divide your college courses into those that are ‘useful’ and those that are ‘useless,’ beware! If you believe that the useful courses are only those that describe how the world works (including how you work)—economics, chemistry, marketing, biology, business, engineering—consider this: Thinking about why the world is the way it is could be a big advantage in understanding how the world works the way it does. Some might even say that describing how without exploring why is no real knowledge at all—or even more severely, in the words of Socrates, that “…an unexamined life is not worth living.”
In this course, we will examine some of the why questions that lie at the very heart of all the useful courses: What does it all matter? Is it all matter? Is mind matter? If it’s all matter, including me, why am I free and conscious and a computer isn’t? Could one ever be? What kind of being am I? Am I a body, or do I have a body? What does it mean to know something correctly? How do we know a ‘fact of knowledge’ is really knowledge of a fact? Does reason have rules? What is the good life? Can there be good without evil? Would the useful courses even exist today without the useless ones taught ages and ages ago?
The Metaphysics Behind Quantum Mechanics-II
University of Chicago - Graham School - Spring 2004
 Syllabus
Reductionism, mechanism, materialism... These are the bedrock concepts upon which modern science has been erected over the past 400 years. We understand the whole by understanding its more fundamental parts. But what does it mean when the physics by which we describe and understand the whole is found to be incompatible with the physics by which we describe and understand the parts? Such incompatibility is, for many, the defining feature of the relationship between classical and quantum mechanics. Recent years, however, have brought new interpretations of quantum theory which suggest a simple and intuitive way by which we might bridge the realms of the quantum and the classical--a bridge which might one day lead physics to its long sought-after goal of providing a truly coherent and unified description of nature.
This course will offer an introduction to quantum mechanics for non-specialists by way of these modern, metaphysically coherent interpretations--interpretations developed by theorists including Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann, Robert Griffiths, Roland Omnes, Wojciech Zurek, and others. We will examine the way in which these new interpretations bridge quantum and classical mechanics--a way suggestive of a coherent, logical, and empirically adequate metaphysical scheme.
The Metaphysics Behind Quantum Mechanics-I
University of Chicago - Graham School - Winter 2004
Syllabus
The ages-old partnership between speculative philosophy and the natural sciences has endured a great many adventures throughout the millennia; and if there is a single Ariadnian thread by which we might retrace those steps, it is the concept of mechanistic-materialism. Its endurance throughout the past 2600 years derives from its intuitive and ever-reliable three-way bridging of scientific prediction and description of nature, and philosophical explanation of nature--a bridging of the Platonic chasm separating what appears to be from what is reasoned to be. By the time this journey had stretched into the 17th century, the classical physics of Newton and Galileo would seem intuitively reasonable, as would the mechanistic-materialistic worldview it presupposed and exemplified. And in the 20th century, it was assumed that quantum physics would also find its home in the framework of mechanistic-materialism. But after several decades of work, it has not, as evinced by the many notorious quantum-classical paradoxes, dualisms and other fundamental conceptual difficulties such as the infamous 'problem of measurement.'
This course will examine the difficulties of the modern mechanistic-materialistic interpretation of quantum mechanics, and explore recent alternatives.
God
and 21st Century Science
University
of Chicago - Graham School - Spring 2003
What
do modern cosmological models have to say about creatio ex nihilo?
What does quantum mechanics have to say about the functions of freedom
and determination in the birth of the universe, its ongoing evolution,
and its ultimate fate? What does complexity theory have to say about
the evolution of life and the various 'argument by design' approaches
to the question of the existence and nature of God? This course
will examine these and other questions raised by current conversations
among philosophy, science, and religion.
Problems
in Science and Religion:
Religion and the History, Methods, and Theories of Modern Science
University
of Chicago - Graham School - Winter 2003
If
physics, metaphysics, and religion offer mutually incompatible explanations
of the universe, then the science and religion dialogue is of dubious
value. But if physics is understood to be descriptive of nature,
and metaphysics and religion are understood to be explicative of
nature (and explicative of the descriptions given by physics), then
the science and religion dialogue is not only reasonable; it might
even be useful. This course will examine the historical evolution
of these two competing characterizations of the relations among
science, philosophy, and religion.
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recent & upcoming events
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| February 4-7, 2013 --Workshop: “A Topological, Sheaf-Theoretic Explication of Quantum Geometric Phases By Analysis of Experimental Data on the Aharonov-Bohm Effect, the Pancharatnam Phase, and the Quantum Hall Effect, Toward a Unified Interpretation” Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland |
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| February 1-3, 2013 --Presentation: “Quantum Theory and Metaphysics” in the Fourth Metalithikum Klausur Symposium Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland |
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| December 12, 2012 --Lecture with Elias Zafiris: “Foundations of Relational Realism: On Relational Realism and the use of Grothendieck topology to construct a category-sheaf theoretic interpretation of quantum mechanics” Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels) Brussels, Belgium |
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| December 6, 2012 --Lecture: “The Mutual Implication of Objects and Relations in Quantum Mechanics: How Potentiality and Contextuality are Ontologically Significant in Modern Physics” California State University, Chico Department of Philosophy |
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| October 27-8, 2012 --Presentation: Michael Epperson and Elias Zafiris: “Relational Realism and Issues in Modern Physics” Claremont Graduate University Claremont, California |
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| October 24, 2012 -- Lecture: Michael Epperson and Elias Zafiris: “Understanding Quantum Mechanics: The Rehabilitation of Aristotle in Modern Physics” Co-sponsored by the Department of History, California State University Sacramento |
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| December 2, 2011 -- Presentation, “Relational Realism, Quantum Mechanics, and the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead” – Conference: “Whitehead: The Next Generation” Claremont Graduate University Claremont, California |
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| November 2, 2011 -- Presentation, “Quantum Mechanics, Category Theory, and the Philosophy of Whitehead" - Symposium: "Conversations About Whitehead and Category Theory” Claremont Graduate University, Center for Process Studies Claremont, California |
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| October 5-8, 2011 -- European Philosophy of Science Association, University of Athens, Greece - Presentation: "Quantum Decoherence: A View from Topology" |
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| June 15-20, 2011 -- Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (co-sponsor) Zurich, Switzerland -- Workshop: "Quantum Relational Realism: Mereotopology, Logical Implication, and Internal Relation in Quantum Mechanics as Represented via Sheaf-theoretic Boolean Covering Systems" |
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| February 17, 2011 – Library of Congress, Washington D.C. “Logical Causality in Whitehead's Philosophy of Nature” – Symposium: “The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead” |
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| October 19-23, 2011-- University of Athens - Institute of Mathematics Athens, Greece -- Workshop: "Applying Sheaf/Category Theory to Quantum Mechanics: Logical Implication And The Internal Relation Of The Local To The Global In Quantum Mechanical Predication" |
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Physics and Speculative Philosophy: Potentiality, Actuality, and Process. ed. with David Ray Griffin and Timothy Eastman (Ontos-Verlag, in review)
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research |
2013-2014: Experimental Application of the Relational Realist Formalism: A Topological, Sheaf-Theoretic Explication of Quantum Geometric Phases By Analysis of Experimental Data on the Aharonov-Bohm Effect, the Pancharatnam Phase, and the Quantum Hall Effect, Toward a Unified Interpretation
Co-Principal Investigator: Dr. Elias Zafiris, Senior Research Fellow in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, University of Athens; Co-Investigator: Dr. Karim Bschir, Chair for Philosophy, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich
2010-2013: Foundations of Relational Realism: Logical Causality, Intrinsic Decoherence, and a Category-Theoretic Mereotopological Model of Quantum Spacetime
(Principal Investigator)
Co-Investigators: Dr. Elias Zafiris, Senior Research Fellow in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, University of Athens; Dr. Karim Bschir, Chair for Philosophy, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich; Dr. Stuart Kauffman, Research Professor, Complex Systems Center, University of Vermont; Dr. Philip Stamp, Professor, Condensed Matter Theory, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia; Dr. Timothy Eastman, Plasmas International & NASA-Goddard. |
2008 - 2010: Logical Causality in Quantum Mechanics: Relational Realism and the Evolution of Ontology to Praxiology in the Philosophy of Nature
(Principal Investigator) NEWS RELEASE
Co-Investigators: Dr. Henry P. Stapp, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Dr. David Finkelstein, Professor, Department of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology; Dr. Timothy Eastman, Group Manager, Heliospheric Physics Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center |
2007: Quantum Mechanical Investigations into the Causal and Logical Orders and the Physical
Basis of Possibility
(Principal Investigator)
Co-Investigators: Dr. Henry P. Stapp, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Dr. David Finkelstein, Professor, Department of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology; Dr. Timothy Eastman, Group Manager, Heliospheric Physics Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; William
Kallfelz, Ph.D. candidate, Committee for Philosophy and the Sciences, Foundations of Physics Group, University of
Maryland |
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| documentary films |
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Outpost Harry is a documentary feature film that recounts the little-known story of how 150 Greek and U.S. soldiers stationed in a remote outpost behind enemy lines defeated over 3000 Chinese infantrymen in one of the most brutal sieges of the Korean War. Like a modern day Battle of Thermopylae, they were ordered to 'hold at all costs' against an enemy that vastly outnumbered them--an enemy that flooded into the tiny outpost night after night for over a week. Click here for more information. Click here for a University News release on the film. |
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recent articles & book chapters |
| K. Bschir, M. Epperson, E. Zafiris, “Decoherence: A View from Topology,” European Journal for the Philosophy of Science (in review) |
| “The Mechanics of Concrescence: Quantum Theory and Process Metaphysics,” Studia Whiteheadiana (Polish translation), Vol 4 (2010): 159-190) |
| "Relational Realism: The Evolution of Ontology to Praxiology in the Philosophy of Nature," World Futures, 65:19-41, Routledge (2009) |
| “Quantum Mechanics and Relational Realism: Logical Causality and Wavefunction Collapse,” Process Studies, 38:2 (2009) |
| “Whitehead and Modern Physics” in Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought. Nicholas Rescher, Johanna Seibt, Michel Weber, eds. Ontos-Verlag (2008) |
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"The
Mechanics of Concrescence: Quantum Theory and Process
Metaphysics" in "The Resource Guide to Physics and Whitehead: Process, Quantum and Experience,"
Timothy E. Eastman and Hank Keeton, eds, SUNY Press
(December 2003)
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"Roman
Religions" in The Encyclopedia of Religion and
War. Palmer-Fernandez, G. ed. New York: Routledge,
(2004)
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reviews
In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World, Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke, eds. in The Journal of Religion (85, no. 2, 2005)
Subquantum Kinetics: A Systems Approach to Physics and Cosmology by Paul LaViolette, in Process Studies (33, no.1, 2005)
Divine Action & Modern Science by Nicholas Saunders, in The Journal of Religion (84, no. 4, 2004) |
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historical documentary film projects |
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| SACRAMENTO, CA - The soldiers of the Greek Expeditionary Forces called it Outpost “Haros”—the Greek name for Death. It was classic wartime humor, a dark pun borne of a hopeless mission. More than 88,000 rounds of Chinese artillery would pound Outpost Harry—a tiny Korean hilltop no bigger than Times Square, 425 yards behind enemy lines. Defended each night by a single American or Greek company of just over 100 infantrymen, the 3000 Chinese soldiers had anticipated an easy capture. Instead, over a period of eight days, vast waves of Chinese Communist Forces would flood into Harry’s trench lines--more than 13,000 attackers in all. And yet each of the five companies ordered to hold Outpost Harry, when its turn came, held the hill. It was nothing less than a modern-day Battle of Thermopylae. |
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The nightly Chinese assaults would advance and recede with each passing day--a relentless tide that would churn up a roiling, bloody flurry of hand to hand combat. On the night of the first attack, June 10, 1953, the Chinese had outnumbered Harry’s defenders by 30 to 1. “All total, there was a reinforced CCF regiment of approximately 3,600 enemy trying to kill just over 100 of us,” said Captain Martin Markley, commander of K Company, 15th Infantry Regiment. “There was no time to formally prepare the troops spiritually for the possibility of their death in the battle that was about to take place.” By morning, all but a dozen GIs had been killed or severely wounded. But they had held the hill.
The relentless attacks would continue throughout the week, each evening bringing a flood of Chinese soldiers pouring through barbed wire, and on the worst nights, into Harry’s trenches. “We could see them out there near the wire, falling right on top of each other. It just wasn't human,” said Pvt. William McLennan, 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, “I guess they wanted Harry. But they didn't get it. They told us to hold it. We did.”
On the seventh day of the siege, Outpost Harry’s defiant, week-long survival and its continued defense were entrusted to the Greek soldiers of Peter Company, Sparta Battalion. Just before the midnight hour of June 17, an entire regiment of nearly 3000 Chinese soldiers burst forth from their positions and stormed the hill’s northern slope. According to official U.S. military records, “Company P of the Greek Battalion, refusing to withdraw, closed in and met the attackers in a furious hand to hand struggle in which many of the enemy were driven off. The aggressors regrouped, quickly attacked a second time, and again gained the friendly trenches. Immediately, the Greek Forces launched a series of counterattacks. After two hours of close-in fighting, the aggressors were again routed and the friendly positions restored.”
It was the last defeat the Chinese Communist Forces could endure in their pursuit of Outpost Harry. Their failed adventure had, in eight days, cost them 4200 casualties. Their entire 74th Division had been decimated. And for the first time in the annals of U.S. military history, five rifle companies together—four American and one Greek—would receive the prestigious Distinguished Unit Citation for the outstanding performance of their shared mission.
Despite its unparalleled intensity, the heroism it engendered, and the international camaraderie uniting its brothers-in-arms, the siege of Outpost Harry is a battle unknown to most, in a war too many have since forgotten. Director-producer Christos Epperson and writer-producer Michael Epperson are proud to announce a new documentary film project dedicated to telling this inspirational story, through interviews with its American and Greek veterans and dramatic re-enactments of key events of the battle. The project was inspired by executive producer Mike Pagomenos, whose father George, an Outpost Harry survivor, recently published his Korean War journal in the Greek language. Following closely in the wake of critical acclaim for the Epperson brothers’ recent World War II documentary, The 11th Day, Archangel Films looks forward to sharing a never-before-seen glimpse into the harrowing ordeal these Greek and American veterans of the Forgotten War met with such courage, and endured with such sacrifice.
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During our first year of production, we have filmed interviews of nearly 50 veterans in the U.S. and in Greece, and organized the first-ever Reunion of Greek Veterans of Outpost Harry, held September 16th and 17th
2006 in Gazi, Heraklion Prefecture,
Crete, Greece. This was exactly 53 years
and 3 months to the day that Peter
Company of Sparta Battalion walked
onto Outpost Harry.
The reunion generated great publicity in the Greek news media, with Metropolitan Sotirios of the Greek Orthodox Church in Korea making the long journey to Greece to attend. |
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Also in attendance was Captain Stephen Sale, Commander of the U.S. Naval Base in Souda Bay, along with U.S. veterans of the Battle for Outpost Harry.
Medals were awarded to the Greek Sparta Battalion veterans by their American counterparts--an award long overdue. We were proud to help make this happen as a part of our film.
Interviews for the Outpost Harry
documentary were carried out in the
Anoghia Suite of the Apollonia Beach Hotel in Amoudara, 9/14-9/18, 2006. |
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All images and content Copyright 2006 Archangel Films
None of the images on this page may be copied, reproduced, distributed, republished, downloaded, displayed, posted or transmitted in any form or by any means, including, but not limited to, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission. |
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