"Scientists and others sometimes deride philosophy on the basis of very little, if any, evidence of what it is like."
James Ladyman is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Bristol, where he is occupied principally with general philosophy of science and philosophy of physics.
During his undergraduate study of pure mathematics, Ladyman's interests extended to philosophy and theoretical physics, and he pursued postgraduate qualifications in philosophy of science. He has defended the view of reality known as "naturalised metaphysics", which seeks to update metaphysics in the light of contemporary findings in science. In his book Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized, co-written with Don Ross, Ladyman urges philosophers to eject from their worldview the classical physical model that describes the world as made up of "self-individuated", "little bits of matter".