Alyssa Ney

Alyssa Ney Portrait

Professor, Philosophy

Philosophy

Education

  • Ph.D., Philosophy, Brown University, 2005
  • M.A., Philosophy, Brown University, 2003
  • B.S., Physics and Philosophy, Tulane University, 1999

About

Alyssa Ney joined the UC Davis Department of Philosophy in 2015. Prior to that, she taught at the University of Rochester for 10 years. She works primarily in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of physics. She is the author of The World in the Wave Function: A Metaphysics for Quantum Physics (Oxford, 2021), Metaphysics: An Introduction (Routledge, 2014), and co-editor with David Z. Albert of The Wave Function: Essays on the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics (Oxford, 2013).

Research Focus

Professor Ney’s research focuses primarily on the interpretation of quantum theories and the unity of science.

Publications

  • Ney, A. (forthcoming). The Fundamentality of Physics: Completeness or Maximality? Oxford Studies in Metaphysics.
  • Ney, A. (2020). Are the Questions of Metaphysics More Fundamental Than Those of Science? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
  • Ney, A. (2016) Microphysical causation and the case for physicalism, Analytic Philosophy.
  • Ney, A. (2016) Grounding in the philosophy of mind: a defense, Scientific Composition and Metaphysical Ground, Palgrave-Macmillan.
  • Ney, A. (2015) Fundamental physical ontologies and the constraint of empirical coherence, Synthese.
  • Ney, A. (2015) A physicalist critique of Russellian Monism, In Consciousness in the Physical World, Oxford University Press.
  • Ney, A., & Phillips, K. (2013) Does an adequate physical theory demand a primitive ontology?, Philosophy of Science, 2013.
  • Ney, A. (2012) Neo-positivist metaphysics, Philosophical Studies.
  • Ney, A. (2012) The status of our ordinary three dimensions in a quantum universe, Noûs.
  • Ney, A. (2009) Physical Causation and Difference-making, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
  • Ney, A. (2007) Physicalism as an attitude, Philosophical Studies.

Teaching

Professor Ney teaches courses in metaphysics, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and logic.