Skip to main content
Overview

Professor Matthew Tugby

Professor / On research leave


Affiliations
AffiliationRoom numberTelephone
Professor / On research leave in the Department of Philosophy +44 (0) 191 33 46576

Biography

Administrative Roles

I am on research leave during the 2022/23 academic year.

Office Hours

I am on reseach leave during the 2022/23 academic year. 

Research Interests

My core philosophical interests lie in the metaphysics of science and I publish mainly on the topics of dispositions, laws, causation and the problem of universals. I argue that properties are metaphysically fundamental and can help to explain many other metaphysical phenomena such as causation, chance, dispositions, laws, modality, and natural kinds. I am a Platonic realist about properties and my recent work focuses on how to motivate a Platonic metaphysics by reflecting on science and modality. This work is published in my 2022 monograph Putting Properties First: A Platonic Metaphysics for Natural Modality (Oxford: Oxford University Press). This research was supported by a Mind Association Research Fellowship. 

Research interests

  • Metaphysics (especially the topics of essence, identity and individuation, modality, ontological dependence, properties and substance)
  • Metaphysics of Science (especially the topics of causation, chance, dispositions, laws and natural kinds)

Awarded Grants

  • 2015: Scientific Platonism: A Study in the Metaphysics of Science(£19347.64 from MIND)

Publications

Authored book

  • Tugby, Matthew (2022). Putting Properties First: A Platonic Metaphysics for Natural Modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chapter in book

Edited book

  • Mumford, Stephen & Tugby, Matthew (2013). Metaphysics and Science. Mind Association Occasional Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Journal Article