This is a research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust, hosted in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bristol, and led by Karim Thébault (PI) and Juliusz Doboszewski (Senior Project Advisor). It will run from 1st July 2026 until 31st June 2030.
We will soon be advertising for a post-doctoral researcher to join the project team.
Project Summary
An important goal of philosophy of science is to aid scientists in formulating precise and useful concepts. This project will create a novel framework, called ‘model-based explication’, that will lead to the refinement of a key
scientific concept, ‘singularity resolution’, in the study of black holes and early universe cosmology. In imprecise terms, singularity resolution is the removal of mathematically and physically pathological behaviour within a
physical theory. In conducting a model-based explication of singularity resolution we will use simple quantum models of black holes and cosmology to establish a more precise and useful scientific concept applicable in de-
idealised contexts.
Project Objectives
The project’s core objective is an interdisciplinary intervention that helps to refine both a key scientific concept and the philosophical framework for analysing such refinements. We will provide a model-based explication of singularity resolution in modern theoretical physics. Through this application, the framework of model-based explication will itself be articulated and developed as a tool to understand and improve reasoning in theoretical physics. This tool will be applicable to various further scientific fields in which idealized models may be used refine scientific concepts.
We will pursue this aim through three further sub-objectives:
1. Explicate the concept of black hole singularity resolution in terms of necessary and sufficient criteria and relate these criteria to the cosmological case which was studied in previous work
2. Use semiclassical (i.e. part classical, part quantum) analysis to connect quantum singularity resolution to study of classical singularities in cosmology and black holes within the famous theorems of Hawking and Penrose
3. Articulate the connections between singularity resolution and heuristic principles relating to the arrow of time and chaotic cosmology.
Philosophy of Physics Bristol 