We are very sad to learn of the death of Joseph Polchinski. His work, including his String Theory textbook, is very important to many philosophers thinking about string theory, and he was generous with his time and intellect with our community. He will be missed.

The statement from UCSB is here: https://chancellor.ucsb.edu/memos/?2.2.2018.Sad.News…Professor.Emeritus.Joseph.Polchinski

The terrific paper that he wrote for Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics is here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.5704