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Dr. Alison Fernandes

Associate Professor (Philosophy)
      
Profile Photo

Dr. Alison Fernandes

Associate Professor (Philosophy)

 ALISON.FERNANDES@tcd.ie

 


  AGENCY   Causation   LAWS OF NATURE   PHILOSOPHY OF PHYSICS   TIME   Time Travel
Fernandes, Alison, The Branchpoint Proposal and the Role of Counterfactuals, The Journal of Philosophy, 2024, p1-34 , Journal Article, ACCEPTED
Alison Fernandes, The Temporal Asymmetry of Causation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023, Book, PUBLISHED
Alison Fernandes, How to Explain the Direction of Time, Synthese, 200, (5), 2022, p1 - 30, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  URL
Lee, Ruth; Shardlow, Jack; Hoerl, Christoph; O'Connor, Patrick A.; Fernandes, Alison S; McCormack, Teresa, Toward an Account of Intuitive Time, Cognitive Science, 46, (7), 2022, p1 - 42, Notes: [DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13166], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Alison Fernandes, Back to the Present: How Not to Use Counterfactuals to Explain Causal Asymmetry, Philosophies, 7, (2), 2022, p1 - 12, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  URL
Alison Fernandes, Time Travel and Counterfactual Asymmetry, Synthese, 2021, p1983 - 2001, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  URL
Jack Shardlow, Ruth Lee, Christoph Hoerl, Teresa McCormack, Patrick Burns & Alison S. Fernandes, Exploring people's beliefs about the experience of time, Synthese , 198, (11), 2021, p10709 - 10731, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI  URL
Alison Fernandes, Freedom, Self-Prediction, and the Possibility of Time Travel, Philosophical Studies, 177, 2020, p89 - 108, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI  URL
Ruth Lee Christoph Hoerl Patrick Burns Alison S. Fernandes Patrick A. O'Connor Teresa McCormack, Pain in the Past and Pleasure in the Future: The Development of Past-Future Preferences for Hedonic Goods, Cogntive Science, 44, (9), 2020, p1 - 40, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI  URL
Alison Fernandes, Does the Temporal Asymmetry of Value Support a Tensed Metaphysics?, Synthese, 198, (5), 2019, p3999 - 4016, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI  URL
  

Page 1 of 2
The Direction of Time in, editor(s)Nina Emery , Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Time, London, 2024, pp11 , [Fernandes, Alison], Book Chapter, IN_PRESS
Naturalism, Functionalism and Chance: Not a Best Fit for the Humean in, editor(s)Michael Hicks, Siegrfied Jaag, Christian Loew , Humean Laws for Human Agents, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2023, [Alison Fernandes], Book Chapter, IN_PRESS
Time, Flies, and Why We Can't Control the Past in, editor(s)Barry Loewer, Eric Winsberg, Brad Weslake , The Probability Map of the Universe: Essays on David Albert's Time and Chance, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2023, [Alison Fernandes], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Christoph Hoerl, Teresa McCormack, Alison Fernandes, Temporal Asymmetries in Philosophy and Psychology, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2022, 1 - 299pp, Book, PUBLISHED
Caring for Our Future Selves in, editor(s)Christoph Hoerl, Teresa McCormack, Alison Fernandes , Temporal Asymmetries in Philosophy and Psychology, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2022, pp181 - 203, [Alison Fernandes], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Temporal Asymmetries in Philosophy and Psychology: An Introduction in, editor(s)Christoph Hoerl, Teresa McCormack, Alison Fernandes , Temporal Asymmetries in Philosophy and Psychology, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2022, pp1 - 28, [Christoph Hoerl, Teresa McCormack, Alison Fernandes], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Causation: Further Themes, Jonathan Tallant , Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Version 2, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/causation-further-themes/v-2. , Taylor and Francis, 2018, [Alison Fernandes], Notes: [doi:10.4324/9780415249126-N114-2.], Item in dictionary or encyclopaedia, etc, PUBLISHED
Alison Fernandes, A deliberative account of causation: How the evidence of deliberating agents accounts for causation and its temporal direction, Columbia University, 2016, Thesis, PUBLISHED

  


Award Date
Research Ally Award, Irish Research Council 2023
Lina Kahn Metaphysics Essay Prize, Columbia University 2015
Charles Frankel Memorial Fund Fellowship, Columbia University (faculty nominated) 2014
Sidney Morgenbesser Fellowship, Columbia University (faculty nominated) 2013
David H. Siff Philosophy of Science Essay Prize, Columbia University 2012
Columbia University Faculty Fellow (full funding) 2010
University of Sydney Postgraduate Award (full funding) 2009
University Medal for Philosophy, University of Sydney 2009
Walter Reid Memorial Prize for Academic Performance in Arts, University of Sydney 2007
Dean's List of Excellence in Academic Performance, University of Sydney 2007
Honours Scholarship, University of Sydney (full tuition funding) 2008
I work in the metaphysics of science to develop accounts of scientific relations, including laws, causation and probabilities. My method of doing so is to think about why we reason about the world using these relations. In the case of causation, for example, we reason about the world using causal terms because doing so is essential in contexts where we must deliberate and decide what to do. So, even though causal relations don"t appear in how fundamental physical theories are formulated, they are a necessary part of our theorising. Using the function of scientific relations, I explain what these relations are and how they relate to the posits of fundamental physics. Considerations of agency also contribute to explaining temporal asymmetries in these relations, such as why causes come before their effects, or why we think of the past but not the future as 'chancy'. These asymmetries partly reflect the fact that we live our lives oriented in time"we make choices about the future and regarding the past as fixed"even if the orientation of our own lives should itself be explained in physical terms. Ultimately, considering our own needs as temporally oriented agents is essential for explaining our scientific view of the world. This approach to the metaphysics of science contributes to our understanding of the function of science, helps relate different scientific theories to one another and provides a unified picture of temporal asymmetries"explaining how they relate and how they might ultimately be traced back to entropic features of the universe. While these are longstanding projects in philosophy, what is particularly unusual in my approach combining a focus on physics and agency: using our relation to science to think through our scientific view of the world.