Yuri Balashov (Ph.D. University of Notre Dame) has a background in physics as well as philosophy and is particularly interested in erasing the boundary between them. His recent work attempts to bring broadly-empirical considerations to bear on important issues in contemporary analytic metaphysics, including the ontology of time, persistence, and material composition. This includes physics-inspired arguments defending four-dimensionalism, the view that material objects are extended in time as well as space and persist through time much like roads and rivers "persist" through space. Dr. Balashov is also interested in philosophy of science and philosophy of language, and is currently working on a new interdisciplinary research project at the interface of philosophy of language, computational linguistics, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. His goal is to explore the uneasy, complicated relationship between human and machine translation. Dr. Balashov's hobbies include (serious) music and skiing.
Recent publications include:
"The Common Present in a Block Universe," in Seminário Lógica no Avião (Brasília, 2019)
"Time, Fission, Fusion: An Argument against the Block Universe with Endurance," Manuscrito (2017)
"Experiencing the Present," Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (2015)
"On the Invariance and Intrinsicality of Four-Dimensional Shapes in Special Relativity," Analysis (2014)
"Do Composite Objects Have an Age in Relativistic Spacetime?" Philosophia Naturalis (2012)
"Persistence," in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time (2011)
Persistence and Spacetime (Oxford University Press, 2010)
Research
- Metaphysics
- Philosophy of Science
- Philosophy of Language