Catherine Z. Elgin (born 1948) is a philosopher working in

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epis ...

and the philosophies of art and science. She holds a Ph.D. from

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , ...

where she studied with

Nelson Goodman Henry Nelson Goodman (7 August 1906 – 25 November 1998) was an American philosopher, known for his work on counterfactuals, mereology, the problem of induction, irrealism, and aesthetics. Life and career Goodman was born in Somerville, M ...

and is currently a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

of philosophy of education at the Graduate School of Education at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

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

Bibliography

* ''With Reference to Reference'', Hackett, 1983 * ''Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences'', together with Nelson Goodman, Routledge, 1988 * ''Revisionen. Philosophie und andere Künste und Wissenschaften'', 1993 * ''The Philosophy of Nelson Goodman'', v. 1. ''Nominalism, Constructivism, and Relativism'', , v. 2. ''Nelson Goodman's New Riddle of Induction'', , v. 3. ''Nelson Goodman's Philosophy of Art'', , v. 4. ''Nelson Goodman's Theory of Symbols and its Applications'', , 1997 * ''Between the Absolute and the Arbitrary'' (Paperback), Cornell University Press, 1997 * ''Considered Judgment'', Princeton University Press, 1996 * ''Philosophical Inquiry: Classic and Contemporary Readings'', 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 Magazin

and republished on 3:1

References

Living people Harvard Graduate School of Education faculty American philosophers Brandeis University alumni Epistemologists 1948 births {{US-philosopher-stub

Philosophical work

Bibliography

See also

References