Guy Hetzroni

Alon Fellow.
Department of Philosophy, University of Haifa

I am a philosopher of science working as a senior lecturer at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Haifa. I am interested in epistemological and methodological aspects of theoretical scientific practice, with much of my work in the history and philosophy of physics. In the philosophy of science, I focus on the justification of theoretical methods and model building, and on naturalist approaches to the philosophy of science. In the context of physics I work on the history and philosophy of quantum theory, on symmetry and invariance, and on the conceptual foundations of relativistic gravity. More recently I started working on the philosophy of evolutionary theory and the epistemology of scientific debates.

Research

How do scientists construct theories and develop new conceptual frameworks, and what justifies the methods they use? What should guide theoretical inquiry when empirical evidence is scarce or inconclusive? What, if anything, can the success of mathematical methods in science reveal about the world? My research brings together normative epistemological inquiry and historical and conceptual investigations of theoretical practice in physics and other sciences.

Justification of Theoretical Methods and Modelling Principles

Can we trust mathematical reasoning in sciences that are supposed to answer to empirical evidence? How can abstract mathematical methods of theory construction be justified when evidence is scarce? Under what conditions are scientists justified in transporting a mathematical modelling technique from one domain to another?

In Theory Construction and the Projectability of Meta-Inductive Arguments (Synthese, 2025) I proposed a framework to address such questions in various scientific contexts, based on the notion of projectability. The approach is anchored in the idea that meta-level scientific reasoning and justifications should be guided by the same standards that guide scientific practice.

History and Philosophy of Quantum Theory

I recently conducted two oral-history interviews with Yakir Aharonov: Theoretical Discovery, Experiment, and Controversy in the Aharonov-Bohm Effect (EPJH, 2025) and A Personal History in Quantum Foundations: An Oral History Interview (EPJH, forthcoming 2026). My ongoing work investigates the conceptual and historical developments that led to the rise of modern quantum foundations research from the late 1950s onward, and why it did not take shape earlier.

Earlier papers are Measurements, Preparations, and Interpretations in Quantum Theory: A Comment on Meehan (BJPS, 2024) and Physical Systems, Mathematical Representation, and Philosophical Principles: The EPR Paper and Its Influence (Iyyun, 2020; in Hebrew), published together with the Hebrew translation of the EPR paper (JSTOR), on which I advised. During my PhD I also wrote Protective Measurements and the PBR Theorem (2015) and GHZ States as Tripartite PR Boxes: Classical Limit and Retrocausality (Entropy, 2018) with Daniel Rohrlich.

Symmetry and Invariance

This ongoing project seeks to clarify one of the most puzzling roles of mathematics in physics: the use of invariance considerations in physics. In Gauge and Ghosts (BJPS, 2021) I examined the relation of the gauge argument to relational quantities in a quantum context. See also Relativity and Equivalence in Hilbert Space (Foundations of Physics, 2020) and Mathematical Analogies in Physics: The Curious Case of Gauge Symmetries (with Noah Stemeroff, 2023) for further implications of this analysis. The most recent presentation of this heuristics-first approach to gauge is found in How to Teach General Relativity (with James Read, forthcoming in BJPS).

I also took part in writing what is probably the most collaborative Cambridge Element: Gauge Symmetries, Symmetry Breaking, and Gauge-Invariant Approaches (with Philipp Berghofer, Jordan François, Simon Friederich, Henrique Gomes, Axel Maas, and René Sondenheimer, CUP 2023). It reviews how the concept of gauge came to be employed in particle physics, and defends the value of approaches that avoid breaking the gauge symmetry in the context of the Higgs mechanism and beyond.

Conceptual Foundations of Relativistic Gravity

In How to Teach General Relativity (with James Read, forthcoming in BJPS) we propose a reconstruction of the basic structure of general relativity that preserves key elements of Einstein's early reasoning while departing from standard accounts in several respects. Rather than presupposing the geometrization of gravity, our reconstruction is motivated by the locality of the evidence supporting special relativity. It also parallels my analysis of the gauge argument. Ongoing work explores extensions of this approach to more recent theories of gravity. Stay tuned!