Academy Fellow

Much of my work is aimed at building bridges between philosophy and psychology. This works aims, on the one hand, to utilise concepts and methods from the former to shed light on issues within psychology, and on the other to use findings in psychology to shed light on traditional issues within philosophy, such as the nature of consciousness, thought, and free will.  

I have shown adequate competence in social science to publish in in a variety of journals that focus on social science, including Nature Communications; Nature Human Behavior; Nature Climate Change; Religion, Brain & Behavior; Social Psychological and Personality Science, as well as a dozen others. I also publish a great deal in philosophy journals that have as a central interest the overlap with social science, such as Philosophical Psychology; Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology; Mind & Language and the Review of Philosophy and Psychology. I edited the journal Neuroethics for a decade, establishing it as the premier venue for work on philosophical issues in neuroscience and related topics.  

My recent work has focused on misinformation. Here I use philosophical analyses of ‘belief’ and ‘rationality’ to assess the degree to which (a) people genuinely believe some of the more bizarre misinformation they verbally endorse, such as conspiracy theories; and (b) whether such beliefs are rationally formed. Together with collaborators in the social sciences, we have gathered and analysed data that we think shows that people often report believing things that they do not. In more purely philosophical work, I have analysed and assessed the rationality of these reports. 

Professor of Philosophy, Macquarie University and Senior Research Fellow, Uehiro Oxford Institute, University of Oxford. 

Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, 2017.  

Named leading researcher in philosophy by The Australian Research Magazine, 2019 and 2024. 

Medal for philosophy, Italian Society for Neuroethics and Philosophy of Neuroscience, 2024. 

Australia Museum Eureka Award for Research in Ethics, 2009 ($10,000) 

Carter, J. A., and Levy, N. 2026. How We Govern Our Minds Through Others. MIT Press. 

Ross, R.M., Gleeson, K., Wilson, S., Ashton, L., & Levy, N. 2026. Do people sincerely believe conspiracy theories that they endorse? Collabra: Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.159253 

Levy, N. 2026. Social Epistemic Warrant? You’re Covered! Analysis. https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anag032 

Levy, N. 2026. Capturing Our Attention. Australasian Journal of Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.1080/00048402.2026.2707327 

Levy, N., Ross. R. M. & McKay, R. 2026. A motley of attitudes: Belief, insincerity, and non-doxastic commitment in magical practice. Evolution & Human Behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2026.106945