The nature of the physical world

A series of lectures presents the philosophical outcome of recent advances in physics, explaining relativity, quantum theory, and thermodynamics and the conceptual shifts that prompted their adoption. It surveys core scientific ideas and challenging arguments, highlights how classical notions of substance and determinism are undermined, and considers the conceptual resources that replace them. In concluding chapters the scientific outlook is related to wider human concerns such as metaphysics and religion, offering a mathematically informed, cautiously idealist interpretation of physical law while stressing remaining uncertainties and the tentative character of philosophical extrapolation.