Catherine Elgin

Catherine Z. Elgin
Elgin in 2017
Born	1948 (1948)
Alma mater	Brandeis University

Institutions	Harvard University
Main interests	epistemology and the philosophies of art and science

Catherine Z. Elgin (born 1948) is a philosopher working in epistemology and the philosophies of art and science.^[1] She is currently a professor of philosophy of education at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.

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Education and career

She holds a Ph.D. from Brandeis University where she studied with Nelson Goodman. She has held tenure-track and visiting positions at many universities, including Michigan State University, Vassar College, Princeton University, and MIT.^[2] In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.^[3]

Philosophical work

Elgin's work has considered such questions as "what makes something cognitively valuable?" As an epistemologist, she considers the pursuit of understanding to be of higher value than the pursuit of knowledge.^[1]

In Considered Judgment, Elgin argues for "a reconception that takes reflective equilibrium as the standard of rational acceptability."^[4]

Works

With Reference to Reference, Hackett, 1983
Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences, with Nelson Goodman, Routledge, 1988
- German translation: Revisionen. Philosophie und andere Künste und Wissenschaften, 1993
(ed.) The Philosophy of Nelson Goodman, v. 1. Nominalism, Constructivism, and Relativism, ISBN 0-8153-2609-2, v. 2. Nelson Goodman's New Riddle of Induction, ISBN 0-8153-2610-6, v. 3. Nelson Goodman's Philosophy of Art, ISBN 0-8153-2611-4, v. 4. Nelson Goodman's Theory of Symbols and its Applications, ISBN 0-8153-2612-2, 1997
Between the Absolute and the Arbitrary Cornell University Press, 1997
Considered Judgment, Princeton University Press, 1996
(ed.) Philosophical Inquiry: Classic and Contemporary Readings, with Jonathan E. Adler. 2007
"Begging to differ", The Philosophers' Magazine, December, 2012
True Enough, MIT Press, 2017
"Understanding in Science and Elsewhere": Interview with Catherine Z. Elgin about her philosophy and her intellectual biography, published 2019 on 3:AM Magazine [1] and republished on 3:16 [2]

References

^ ^a ^b "Harvard: Catherine Elgin". Harvard University. Archived from the original on 15 December 2010. Retrieved 2009-03-01.
^ Curriculum vitae (Archived)
^ "New Members". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2024-02-04.
^ "Considered Judgment". Princeton University Press. Retrieved 2009-03-01.