Catherine Wilson University of Aberdeen, City University of New York
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Affiliations
  • Faculty, University of Aberdeen
  • Faculty, City University of New York
  • PhD, Princeton University, 1977.

Areas of specialization
  • None specified

Areas of interest

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About me
"Evolutionary ethics"--is my main agenda at the moment. I'm interested in the semantics and pragmatics of moral discourse and in the analogies and disanalogies between scientific progress and scientific knowledge and social progress and normative knowledge. Meanwhile, I'm continuing to work in 17th and 18th century history and philosophy of science, following up on Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity (2008).
My works
49 items found.
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  1. Desmond M. Clarke & Catherine Wilson (2011). The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Early Modern Europe. Oxford University Press.
    In this Handbook twenty-six leading scholars survey the development of philosophy between the middle of the sixteenth century and the early eighteenth century.
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  2. Catherine Wilson (2011). Moral Progress Without Moral Realism. Philosophical Papers 39 (1):97-116.
    This paper argues that we can acknowledge the existence of moral truths and moral progress without being committed to moral realism. Rather than defending this claim through the more familiar route of the attempted analysis of the ontological commitments of moral claims, I show how moral belief change for the better shares certain features with theoretical progress in the natural sciences. Proponents of the better theory are able to convince their peers that it is formally and empirically superior to its (...)
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  3. Catherine Wilson (2011). Moral Truth: Observational or Theoretical? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 111 (1pt1):97-114.
    Moral properties are widely held to be response-dependent properties of actions, situations, events and persons. There is controversy as to whether the putative response-dependence of these properties nullifies any truth-claims for moral judgements, or rather supports them. The present paper argues that moral judgements are more profitably compared with theoretical judgements in the natural sciences than with the judgements of immediate sense-perception. The notion of moral truth is dependent on the notion of moral knowledge, which in turn is best understood (...)
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  4. Catherine Wilson (2010). Review of David Cunning, Argument and Persuasion in Descartes' Meditations. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (10).
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  5. Catherine Wilson (2010). The Explanation of Consciousness and the Interpretation of Philosophical Texts. In Peter K. Machamer & Gereon Wolters (eds.), Interpretation: Ways of Thinking About the Sciences and the Arts. University of Pittsburgh Press.
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  6. Catherine Wilson (2009). Epicureanism in the Early Modern Period. In James Warren (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism. Cambridge University Press.
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  7. Catherine Wilson (2009). Review of Daniel Callcut (Ed.), Reading Bernard Williams. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (10).
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  8. Catherine Wilson (2008). Disgrace : Bernard Williams and J.M. Coetzee. In Garry Hagberg (ed.), Art and Ethical Criticism. Blackwell Pub..
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  9. Catherine Wilson (2008). Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity. Oxford University Press.
    This landmark study examines the role played by the rediscovery of the writings of the ancient atomists, Epicurus and Lucretius, in the articulation of the major philosophical systems of the seventeenth century, and, more broadly, their influence on the evolution of natural science and moral and political philosophy. The target of sustained and trenchant philosophical criticism by Cicero, and of opprobrium by the Christian Fathers of the early Church, for its unflinching commitment to the absence of divine supervision and the (...)
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  10. Catherine Wilson, Kant and Leibniz. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  11. Catherine Wilson (2008). Review of Alan Thomas (Ed.), Bernard Williams. [REVIEW] Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (5).
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  12. Catherine Wilson (2008). What Do Simple Folks Know? Commentary on the Papers of Adler, Arikha, Martensen, Origgi, and Stoler. Philosophical Forum 39 (3):363-372.
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  13. Monte Ransome Johnson & Catherine Wilson (2007). Lucretius and the History of Science. In Stuart Gillespie & Philip R. Hardie (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius. Cambridge University Press.
    An overview of the influence of Lucretius poem On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura) on the renaissance and scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, and an examination of its continuing influence over physical atomism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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  14. Monte Johnson & Catherine Wilson (2007). Pt. 2. Themes. Lucretius and the History of Science. In Stuart Gillespie & Philip R. Hardie (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius. Cambridge University Press.
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  15. Catherine Wilson (2007). The Moral Epistemology of Locke's Essay. In Lex Newman (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding". Cambridge University Press.
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  16. Monte Johnson & Catherine Wilson, Lucretius and the History of Science.
    The essay is to be published in the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to Lucretius (ed. P. Hardie and S. Gilispie). It provides an overview of the influence of Lucretius on the renaissance, early modern, modern, and twentieth century science, including cosmology, physics, chemistry, and life sciences.
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  17. C. Wilson (2006). Review: The Moral Demands of Affluence. Mind 115 (460):1122-1126.
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  18. Catherine Wilson (2006). Commentary on Galen Strawson. Journal of Consciousness Studies 13 (s 10-11):177-183.
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  19. Catherine Wilson (2006). Kant and the Speculative Sciences of Origins. In Justin E. H. Smith (ed.), The Problem of Animal Generation in Early Modern Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
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  20. Catherine Wilson (2006). Review of Victoria Kahn, Neil Saccamano, Daniela Coli (Eds.), Politics and the Passions, 1500-1850. [REVIEW] Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (11).
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  21. Catherine Wilson (2005). Claudia Card, Ed., The Cambridge Companion to Simone de Beauvoir:The Cambridge Companion to Simone de Beauvoir. Ethics 115 (2):389-393.
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  22. Catherine Wilson (2005). Is the History of Philosophy Good for Philosophy? In Tom Sorell & G. A. J. Rogers (eds.), Analytic Philosophy and History of Philosophy. Oxford University Press.
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  23. Catherine Wilson (2004). Love of God and Love of Creatures: The Masham-Astell Debate. History of Philosophy Quarterly 21 (3):281 - 298.
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  24. Catherine Wilson (2004). Moral Animals: Ideals and Constraints in Moral Theory. Oxford University Press.
    In Moral Animals, Catherine Wilson develops a theory of morality based on two fundamental premises: first that moral progress implies the evolution of moral ideals involving restraint and sacrifice; second that human beings are outfitted by nature with selfish motivations, intentions, and ambitions that place constraints on what morality can demand of them. Normative claims, she goes on to show, can be understood as projective hypotheses concerning the conduct of realistically-described nonideal agents in preferred fictional worlds. Such claims differ from (...)
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  25. Catherine Wilson (2003). A Humean Argument for Benevolence to Strangers. The Monist 86 (3).
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  26. Catherine Wilson (2003). Capability and Language in the Novels of Tarjei Vesaas. Philosophy and Literature 27 (1):21-39.
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  27. Catherine Wilson (2003). Descartes's Meditations: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press.
    In this new introduction to a classic philosophical text, Catherine Wilson examines the arguments of Descartes' famous Meditations, the book which launched modern philosophy. Drawing on the reinterpretations of Descartes' thought of the past twenty-five years, she shows how Descartes constructs a theory of the mind, the body, nature, and God from a premise of radical uncertainty. She discusses in detail the historical context of Descartes' writings and their relationship to early modern science, and at the same time she introduces (...)
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  28. Catherine Wilson (2003). Philosopher: A Kind of Life. Philosophy 78 (4):541-552.
    This is an essay review of Ted Honderich's recently published autobiography. Treating the work as both a study of philosophical and political culture in the second half of the twentieth century and as an exercise in self-evaluation, the reviewer discusses the problems of truth and explanation in narrative and the issues of professional and sexual morality raised by the narrative. Honderich's account is assessed as credible, illuminating, and well-written, even as questions are raised concerning the consistency of his political beliefs.
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  29. Catherine Wilson (2003). The Role of a Merit Principle in Distributive Justice. Journal of Ethics 7 (3):277-314.
    The claim that the level of well-beingeach enjoys ought to be to some extent afunction of individuals'' talents, efforts,accomplishments, and other meritoriousattributes faces serious challenge from bothegalitarians and libertarians, but also fromskeptics, who point to the poor historicalrecord of attempted merit assays and theubiquity of attribution biases arising fromlimited sweep, misattribution, custom andconvention, and mimicry. Yet merit-principlesare connected with reactive attitudes andinnate expectations, giving them some claim torecognition and there is a widespread beliefthat their use indirectly promotes thewell-being of all. (...)
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  30. Christian Helmut Wenzel, Catherine Wilson, Andrew Levine & David Ingram (2002). Review of Herbert Marcuse, Douglas Kellner Ed., Towards a Critical Theory of Society: The Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse: Volume Two. [REVIEW] Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2002 (1).
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  31. C. Wilson (2002). The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche. Philosophical Review 111 (1):108-113.
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  32. Catherine Wilson (2002). Review of Michael Losonsky, Enlightenment and Action From Descartes to Kant: Passionate Thought. [REVIEW] Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2002 (1).
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  33. Catherine Wilson (2001). Prospects for Non-Cognitivism. Inquiry 44 (3):291 – 314.
    This essay offers a defence of the non-cognitivist approach to the interpretation of moral judgments as disguised imperatives corresponding to social rules. It addresses the body of criticism that faced R. M. Hare, and that currently faces moral anti-realists, on two levels, by providing a full semantic analysis of evaluative judgments and by arguing that anti-realism is compatible with moral aspiration despite the non-existence of obligations as the externalist imagines them. A moral judgment consists of separate descriptive and prescriptive components (...)
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  34. Catherine Wilson (2000). The Biological Basis and Ideational Superstructure of Morality. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 30 (Supplement).
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  35. Catherine Wilson (1999). Picturing Knowledge: Historical and Philosophical Problems Concerning the Use of Art in Science Brian Baigrie, Editor Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996, Xxiv + 389 Pp., $80.00, $24.95 Paper. Dialogue 38 (03):664-.
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  36. Catherine Wilson (1998). Natural Domination: A Reply to Michael Levin. Philosophy 73 (4):573-592.
    The paper is adressed to Michael Levin's recent Philosophy article ‘Natural Submission, Aristotle on.’ Levin argues that rule by the naturally dominant is for the best and that the naturally submissive ought to accept it as just and even inevitable. I point out some confusions in his attempt to link merit-conferring traits in individuals with social and political dominance and question his conceptions of human welfare, inferiority, and criminality. Certain combinations of competence and forcefulness arise in real-world settings, and they (...)
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  37. Catherine Wilson (1997). Motion, Sensation, and the Infinite: The Lasting Impression of Hobbes on Leibniz. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 5 (2):339 – 351.
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  38. Catherine Wilson (1997). Theological Foundations for Modern Science? Dialogue 36 (03):597-.
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  39. Catherine Wilson (1996). Instruments and Ideologies: The Social Construction of Knowledge and Its Critics. American Philosophical Quarterly 33 (2):167 - 181.
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  40. Catherine Wilson (1993). Constancy, Emergence, and Illusions: Obstacles to a Naturalistic Theory of Vision. In Causation in Early Modern Philosophy. University Park: Penn St University Press.
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  41. Catherine Wilson (1993). Causation in Early Modern Philosophy. University Park: Penn St University Press.
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  42. Catherine Wilson (1993). Interaction with the Reader in Kant's Transcendental Theory of Method. History of Philosophy Quarterly 10 (1):83 - 97.
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  43. Catherine Wilson (1993). On Some Alleged Limitations to Moral Endeavor. Journal of Philosophy 60 (6):275-289.
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  44. Catherine Wilson (1991). Leibniz and Strawson. International Studies in Philosophy 23 (3):99-100.
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  45. Catherine Wilson (1983). Literature and Knowledge. Philosophy 58 (226):489 - 496.
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  46. Catherine Wilson (1983). Leibnizian Optimism. Journal of Philosophy 80 (11):765-783.
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  47. C. Wilson (1982). Leibniz and Atomism. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 13 (3):175-199.
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  48. Catherine Wilson (1982). Illusion and Representation. British Journal of Aesthetics 22 (3):211-221.
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  49. Catherine Wilson (1980). Self-Deception and Psychological Realism. Philosophical Investigations 3 (4):47-60.
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