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1415 Epicureanism in early modern philosophyIn James Warren (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, Cambridge University Press. pp. 266. 2009.
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34Metaethics from a first person standpoint: an introduction to moral philosophyOpen Book Publishers. 2016.Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint addresses in a novel format the major topics and themes of contemporary metaethics, the study of the analysis of moral thought and judgement. Metathetics is less concerned with what practices are right or wrong than with what we mean by 'right' and 'wrong.' Looking at a wide spectrum of topics including moral language, realism and anti-realism, reasons and motives, relativism, and moral progress, this book engages students and general readers in order to…Read more
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4Descartes and AugustineIn Janet Broughton & John Carriero (eds.), A Companion to Descartes, Wiley-blackwell. 2007.This chapter contains section titled: Two Seekers After Truth Coincidence and Divergence The Good World Doctrine Appendix: Passages Relating to Shared Doctrines in Augustine and Descartes References and Further Reading.
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7Possibility, Plenitude, and the Optimal World: Rescher on Leibniz’s CosmologyIn Robert Almeder (ed.), Rescher Studies: A Collection of Essays on the Philosophical Work of Nicholas Rescher, De Gruyter. pp. 477-492. 2008.
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12. Monads, Forces, Causes (§ 80)In Hubertus Busche (ed.), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Monadologie, Akademie Verlag. pp. 211-221. 2009.
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8The Biological Basis and Ideational Superstructure of MoralityCanadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 26 (sup1): 210-244. 2000.If moral epistemology can be naturalized, there must be genuine moral knowledge, knowledge of what it is morally right for someone or even everyone to do in a particular situation. The naturalist hopes to explain how such knowledge can be acquired by ordinary empirical means, without appealing to a special realm of moral facts separate from the rest of nature, and a special faculty equipped to detect them. Various learning mechanisms for acquiring moral knowledge have been proposed. Most, howeve…Read more
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3Some Motives and Incentives to the Study of Natural PhilosophyIn Moritz Epple & Claus Zittel (eds.), Science as cultural practice, Akademie Verlag. pp. 13-30. 2010.
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5Philosophical and Scientific Empiricism and Rationalism in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth CenturiesIn Anne-Lise Rey & Siegfried Bodenmann (eds.), What Does It Mean to Be an Empiricist?: Empiricisms in Eighteenth Century Sciences, Springer Verlag. pp. 123-138. 2018.The paper critically evaluates two commonplaces of historiography. One is that Empiricism as a philosophical movement of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was opposed to Rationalism corresponding to an English-Continental division of personnel. The other commonplace is the view that the main accomplishments of eighteenth century science were mainly taxonomic in contrast to the remarkable conceptual innovations of Galileo, Descartes and Newton. I point instead, as characteristic of e…Read more
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17Leibniz's Metaphysics: A Historical and Comparative StudyPrinceton University Press. 1990.This study of the metaphysics of G. W. Leibniz gives a clear picture of his philosophical development within the general scheme of seventeenth-century natural philosophy. Catherine Wilson examines the shifts in Leibniz's thinking as he confronted the major philosophical problems of his era. Beginning with his interest in artificial languages and calculi for proof and discovery, the author proceeds to an examination of Leibniz’s early theories of matter and motion, to the phenomenalistic turn in …Read more
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9Jacques Maritain and Eduardo Frei MontalvaJournal of Interdisciplinary Studies 21 (1-2): 83-105. 2009.Eduardo Frei Montalva, co-founder of the Christian Democratic Party and President of Chile, represented for Jacques Maritain, French neo-Thomist philosopher, an example of prophetic leadership in contemporary times. According to Maritain, modem democracy could not survive without a profound spiritual revolution of political leadership--the "prophetic factor" of democracy--which he observed in Frei as a public official, senator, and ultimately the Presient of the Republic of Chile (1964-1970). Un…Read more
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4Chaves, Mark. American Religion: Contemporary Trends (review)Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 25 (1-2): 189-191. 2013.
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12Analytical essay on the faculties of the soul (review)Annals of Science 80 (4): 420-423. 2023.The Genevan naturalist, Charles Bonnet (1720–1793), was one of the best-known scientific observers and theorists of the second half of the eighteenth century. His first interests lay in the microsc...
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2AbbreviationsIn Donald Rutherford (ed.), Leibniz's Metaphysics: A Historical and Comparative Study, Duke University Press. 1992.
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9The Theory of Drive: The Dual Legacy of Leibniz’s Theory of AppetitionIn Manja Kisner & Jörg Noller (eds.), The Concept of Drive in Classical German Philosophy: Between Biology, Anthropology, and Metaphysics, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 11-37. 2021.Leibniz’s metaphysics has been cited as a source of the dynamic and organic worldview of romantic Naturphilosophie. This chapter evaluates that claim by examining two distinct lineages of Leibniz’s metaphysical conception of dynamic appetition. On one hand, by demonstrating the existence of a “vis viva” in inanimate objects and by ascribing two distinct powers—perception and appetition—to all plants and animals as well as to his incorporeal “monads,” Leibniz seemed to restore force to physics an…Read more
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7Leibniz et Ficino: vie, activité, matière. Leibniz und Ficino: Leben, Aktivität, MaterieStudia Leibnitiana 49 (2): 243. 2017.Although Leibniz characterised himself in the “New Essays” as a “Platonic” as opposed to a “Democritean” philosopher, his intellectual relationship with the most famous of the Renaissance Neoplatonists, Marsilio Ficino, has received little attention. Here we review what can be thus far established regarding Leibniz’s acquaintance with portions of Ficino’s Opera omnia of 1576. We compare Ficino’s disenchantment with the atomistic materialism of Lucretius, which he had favoured in his youth, and h…Read more
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Kant on civilization, culture and moralisationIn Alix Cohen (ed.), Kant's Lectures on Anthropology: A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press. 2014.
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Essential religiosity in Descartes and LockeIn Philippe Hamou & Martine Pécharman (eds.), Locke and Cartesian Philosophy, Oxford University Press. 2018.
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7How to be an epicurean: the ancient art of living wellBasic Books. 2019.A leading philosopher shows that if the pursuit of happiness is the question, Epicureanism is the answer Epicureanism has a reputation problem, bringing to mind gluttons with gout or an admonition to eat, drink, and be merry. In How to Be an Epicurean, philosopher Catherine Wilson shows that Epicureanism isn't an excuse for having a good time: it's a means to live a good life. Although modern conveniences and scientific progress have significantly improved our quality of life, many of the proble…Read more
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4Introduction — Social Inequality: Rousseau in RetrospectCanadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 25 1-30. 1999.
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10Kant and the naturalistic turn of 18th Century philosophyOxford University Press. 2022.Struck by the absence of love affairs, adventures, travels, and political engagement in Immanuel Kant's life, a noted commentator describes him as unformed, to a degree surpassing all other philosophers, by challenging life events. Declaring that Kant 'can be understood only through his work in which he immerses himself with unwavering discipline,' the writer evokes the image of a body of writing demanding to be understood through text-internal analytical methods alone. The theme of the enclosed…Read more
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18Epicureanism in the early modern periodIn James Warren (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, Cambridge University Press. pp. 266. 2009.
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85Grief and the PoetBritish Journal of Aesthetics 53 (1): 77-91. 2013.Poetry, drama and the novel present readers and viewers with emotionally significant situations that they often experience as moving, and their being so moved is one of the principal motivations for engaging with fictions. If emotions are considered as action-prompting beliefs about the environment, the appetite for sad or frightening drama and literature is difficult to explain, insofar nothing tragic or frightening is actually happening to the reader, and people do not normally enjoy being sad…Read more
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What (Else) Was Behind the Newtonian Rejection of 'Hypotheses'?In Peter R. Anstey & Alberto Vanzo (eds.), Experiment, Speculation and Religion in Early Modern Philosophy, Routledge. 2019.Newton’s famous Hypotheses non fingo raises many questions. While he castigated the Cartesians for their vortex hypothesis, and his follower Cotes attacked mechanical chemistry, Newton himself ventured many hypotheses, notably in his Opticks, the Queries to the Opticks and in the last book of the Principia. Although it is true that Newton, unlike Descartes, fit his data to mathematical models, what he said about hypotheses seems straightforwardly false. To explain this situation, Wilson explores…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 |