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49Plenitude and Compossibility in LeibnizThe Leibniz Review 10 1-20. 2000.Leibniz entertained the idea that, as a set of “striving possibles” competes for existence, the largest and most perfect world comes into being. The paper proposes 8 criteria for a Leibniz-world. It argues that a) there is no algorithm e.g., one involving pairwise compossibility-testing that can produce even possible Leibniz-worlds; b) individual substances presuppose completed worlds; c) the uniqueness of the actual world is a matter of theological preference, not an outcome of the assembly-pro…Read more
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17Les Modèles du vivant de Descartes à LeibnizThe Leibniz Review 12 123-127. 2002.Nowadays “philosophy of biology” is taken to be the special study of a set of issues concerning selection, adaptation, and the characterization of a species. Though the reduction of biology to chemistry and physics remained a topic in the general philosophy of science syllabus through the 1970s, the concept of life subsequently lost even this marginal foothold in the curriculum. Hans.
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82Love of God and Love of Creatures: The Masham-Astell DebateHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 21 (3): 281-298. 2004.
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126Epicureanism at the origins of modernityOxford University Press. 2008.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 absenc…Read more
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66The Biological Basis and Ideational Superstructure of MoralityCanadian Journal of Philosophy 30 (sup1): 211-244. 2000.(2000). The Biological Basis and Ideational Superstructure of Morality. Canadian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 30, Supplementary Volume 26: Moral Epistemology Naturalized, pp. 210-244
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246Moral Progress Without Moral RealismPhilosophical Papers 39 (1): 97-116. 2010.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 superi…Read more
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97The Oxford handbook of philosophy in early modern Europe (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2011.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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31Realism and Relativism in EthicsIn Desmond M. Clarke & Catherine Wilson (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy in early modern Europe, Oxford University Press. 2011.This article examines the shift in the concept of realism and relativism in ethics in early modern Europe. It suggests that the problem of the nature and foundations of moral rightness and moral obligation became visible to philosophers of the early modern period as they began to reconsider the problems of error, superstition, and illusion to question traditional authorities and to devote attention to scientific methodology and the logic of discovery. It contends that the doctrine that qualities…Read more
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10Margaret Cavendish, Observations upon Experimental Philosophy Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 23 (5): 325-327. 2003.
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39Hume and vital materialismBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 24 (5): 1002-1021. 2016.ABSTRACTHume was not a philosopher famed for what are sometimes called ‘ontological commitments'. Nevertheless, few contemporary scholars doubt that Hume was an atheist, and the present essay tenders the view that Hume was favourably disposed to the 'vital materialism' of post-Newtonian natural philosophers in England, Scotland and France. Both internalist arguments, collating passages from a range of Hume's works, and externalist arguments, reviewing the likely sources of his knowledge of ancie…Read more
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5The moral epistemology of Locke's EssayIn Lex Newman (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding", Cambridge University Press. 2007.
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72Motion, sensation, and the infinite: The lasting impression of Hobbes on LeibnizBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 5 (2). 1997.No abstract
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66A Humean Argument for Benevolence to StrangersThe Monist 86 (3): 454-468. 2003.Hume is not known for his theory of the benevolence we owe to distant strangers. One might suppose that he would deny that an obligation so contrary to our natural habits and predilections could be well-founded.
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30Review of Daniel Callcut (ed.), Reading Bernard Williams (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (10). 2009.
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Margaret Cavendish, Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (review)Philosophy in Review 23 325-327. 2003.
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22Instruments and Ideologies: The Social Construction of Knowledge and Its CriticsAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 33 (2). 1996.
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40Natural domination: A reply to Michael LevinPhilosophy 73 (4): 573-592. 1998.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 forceful…Read more
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31Descartes's Meditations: An IntroductionCambridge University Press. 2003.In this 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…Read more
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18Review: Losonsky, Enlightenment and Action From Descartes to Kant: Passionate Thought (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2002 (1). 2002.
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58Managing Expectations: Locke on the Material Mind and Moral MediocrityRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 78 127-146. 2016.Locke's insistence on the limits of knowledge and the ‘mediocrity’ of our epistemological equipment is well understood; it is rightly seen as integrated with his causal theory of ideas and his theory of judgment. Less attention has been paid to the mediocrity theme as it arises in his theory of moral agency. Locke sees definite limits to human willpower. This is in keeping with post-Puritan theology with its new emphasis on divine mercy as opposed to divine justice and recrimination. It also ref…Read more
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8IV. Metaphysical foundations for natural scienceIn Donald Rutherford (ed.), Leibniz's Metaphysics: A Historical and Comparative Study, Duke University Press. pp. 121-157. 1992.
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37Moral Psychology: Feminist Ethics and Social Theory (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2004.Moral psychology studies the features of cognition, judgement, perception and emotion that make human beings capable of moral action. Perspectives from feminist and race theory immensely enrich moral psychology. Writers who take these perspectives ask questions about mind, feeling, and action in contexts of social difference and unequal power and opportunity. These essays by a distinguished international cast of philosophers explore moral psychology as it connects to social life, scientific stud…Read more
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83Prospects for non-cognitivismInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 44 (3). 2001.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 c…Read more
Catherine Wilson
CUNY Graduate Center
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CUNY Graduate CenterDistinguished Professor (Part-time)
Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Social and Political Philosophy |