Valia Allori
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Northern Illinois University
Zulaf Hall 920, Dekalb, 60115 IL
Phone: 815 753 6412 (office) , E-mail: vallori@niu.edu 

Education
Ph.D. (Philosophy) Rutgers 2007.
Ph. D. (Physics) University of Genova 2001.
M.A. (Physics) University of Milano1997.

Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Physics, Metaphysics

Overview:
Valia Allori has studied physics and philosophy first in Italy, her home country, and then in the United States. She has worked in the foundations of quantum mechanics, in particular in the framework of Bohmian mechanics, a quantum theory without observers. Her main concern has always been to understand what the world is really like, and how we can use our best physical theory to answer such general metaphysical questions. In her physics doctoral dissertation, she discussed the classical limit of quantum mechanics, to analyze the connections between the quantum and the classical theories. What does it mean that a theory, in a certain approximation, reduces to another? Is the classical explanation of macroscopic phenomena essentially different from the one provided by quantum mechanics? In her philosophy doctoral dissertation she turned to more general questions that involve the structure of fundamental physical theories, the metaphysical status and the epistemological role of the theoretical entities used in these theories. Do all fundamental physical theories have the very same structure, contrarily to what one might think? If so, what is this telling us about the nature of explanation? She has worked mainly in collaboration with Detlef Duerr, Sheldon Goldstein, Roderich Tumulka and Nino Zanghi in Bohmian mechanics, writing several articles with them. She is also co-author of a book on the philosophy and foundations of physics, written in Italian, together with Mauro Dorato, Federico Laudisa and Nino Zanghi. The book, "La Natura delle Cose" (The Nature of Things), has been written mainly for a philosophy or a physics student who is interested in the main problems of the theory of relativity, statistical mechanics, quantum theory and causation, but it might be accessible, even if with some effort, by an interested reader.

Curriculum vitae: (HTML) (PDF longer version)

• Personal background
• Conferences
• Teaching

Publications:
Books

• Book Contract: "Dismantling Quantum Paradoxes,'' Springer-Verlag.
  
• "La Natura delle Cose: Introduzione ai Fondamenti e alla Filosofia della Fisica", (transl.:"The Nature of Things: Introduction to the Philosophy and the Foundations of Physics"), with M. Dorato, F. Laudisa, N. Zanghi. Carocci eds., Rome (2005).
  

Articles (Philosophy) 

• "On the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics." In S. Lebihan (ed.), La philosophie de la physique: d'aujourd'hui a demain. Editions Vuibert (forthcoming).
• "Primitive Ontology and the Structure of Fundamental Physical Theories." In: D. Albert, A. Ney (eds.) The Wave Function. Oxford University Press (forthcoming).
• "Many-Worlds and Schroedinger's First Quantum Theory" . The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62  (1), 1--27 (2011) -- (with S. Goldstein, R. Tumulka, and N. Zanghi).
• "La storia del gatto che era sia vivo che morto'' (transl: "The Story of the Cat that was both Dead and Alive''). In: E. Giannetto, G. Giannini (eds.)  Da Archimede a Majorana: la fisica nel suo divenire. Guaraldi (2009).
• "On the Classical Limit of Quantum Mechanics". Foundations of Physics, 10.1007/s10701-008-9259-4 (2008) -- (with Nino Zanghi).
• "On the Common Structure of Bohmian Mechanics and the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber Theory". The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science  59 (3), 353-389 (2008) -- (with S. Goldstein, R. Tumulka, and N. Zanghi). 
• "Ontologie Quantistiche di Particelle, Campi e Lampi" (transl.: "Quantum Ontologies of Particles, Fields and Flashes").  E. Fano and M. Antonelli (eds.), Strutture dello spazio tra fisica e psicologia, Teorie e Modelli, XII, III. 9-29   (2007) --  (with N. Zanghi). 
• "E' completa la descrizione della realta' fisica fornita dalla meccanica quantistica?" (transl.: "Is the Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Complete?"). Il Protagora vol. 9, 163-180 (2007) -- (with N. Zanghi).
• "What is Bohmian Mechanics". International Journal of Theoretical Physics 43, 1743-1755 (2004) --  (with N. Zanghi) .
• "Seven Steps Toward the Classical World" . Journal of Optics B 4, 482–488 (2002) -- (with D. Duerr, S. Goldstein, N. Zanghi).
  

• Interview for "Rolling Stone Magazine -Italia" (in Italian)  

• Interview for "La Soglia Oscura" (Part 1 and 2,  in Italian) 

Back to NIU Philosophy Department Homepage