“Claims like 'Slavery is wrong' are not fully common-sensical, so they must be at least partly theoretical.” Quote by Catherine Wilson
“In the academic setting, you take (typically) lonely, interesting middle-aged men and beautiful, intelligent young women, and everybody's motivations for display and conquest are engaged to the max. Sublimated, this can be a powerful force for the good - Plato had a lot to say about that - but acted upon it can bring evils without end.” MenEndsBeautifulYoungMotivationEvilForceInterestingPowerfulMiddleLonelyIntelligentSettingSettingsEngagedAcademicDisplayYoung WomenPlatoConquestMaxMiddle Aged Author:Catherine Wilson
“I had the idea that there were secret laws of the universe that could explain the baffling human reality around me, and that philosophers maybe had the key to them.” HumansIdeasRealityLawUniverseSecretKeysPhilosopher Author:Catherine Wilson
“Oddly, since by now I've written quite a lot on early modern philosophers, I didn't care for the history of philosophy, which I thought dull and obscure, until I got a minor job writing articles for a children's encyclopedia in the history of science and began to make connections between science and philosophy.” WritingChildrenPhilosophyCareJobsWrittenModernConnectionsPhilosopherDullArticlesMinorsObscureEncyclopediaHistory Of ScienceScience And Philosophy Author:Catherine Wilson
“About 70% of what I've written about is centered on the clashes and conformities between the emerging life and physical sciences and older metaphysical frameworks in the 17th and 18th centuries. The other 30% consists of one-off essays or researches into other intriguing contemporary topics such as visual experience, aesthetics, social justice issues, and the epistemology of moral knowledge.” SocialJusticeMoralIssuesWrittenCenturyResearchSocial JusticeContemporaryVisualsConformityTopicsMetaphysicalEssaysFrameworkAestheticsEmergingClashIntriguingEpistemology18th CenturyPhysical Science Author:Catherine Wilson
“The Epicureans denied that the gods had created the world and also denied that they played any role in it.” WorldRolesDeniedEpicurean Author:Catherine Wilson
“Even if the gods did exist, the Epicureans argued, they didn't care about us. Rather, everything comes from nature, and all that really exists are atoms and void, moving and congregating.” IfsCareMovingAtomsVoidEpicurean Author:Catherine Wilson
“Some critics thought the ontology and theory of qualities absurd. No one had ever seen these little atoms, and furthermore, how could their mere arrangement produce a noisy, colourful, world in which day followed night and animals generated their own kind? Instead of a world created, cared, for and supervised by supernatural persons, the Epicureans appeared to the theologians to be assigning everything to chance. The latter were appalled by Lucretius's view of religion as cruel and oppressive and by the Epicurean insistence that death is the end of all experience.” WorldKindLittlesPersonsEndsNightChanceAnimalViewsQualityProduceTheoryMereCriticsAbsurdLatterAtomsArrangementsTheologianNoisyInsistenceOntologyColourfulEpicurean Author:Catherine Wilson
“For seventeenth-century astronomers, the Epicurean doctrine of multiple worlds separated by void space was seen to fit with the new Copernican system in which every star was a sun, and the universe was a vast place with no centre.” WorldUniverseStarsSpaceSunCenturyFitDoctrineVoidMultipleCentreAstronomersEpicurean Author:Catherine Wilson
“For the chemists, who wanted to manufacture new medicines and elixirs and transform base substances into noble ones, the notion that there was no metaphysical barrier to doing so - it was just a matter of getting the particles into new arrangements - was encouraging. That was the Baconian programme.” MatterWantedMedicineNotionNobleSubstanceBarriersArrangementsMetaphysicalParticlesProgrammesChemistElixir Author:Catherine Wilson
“Aristotle saw nature as intelligent and purposive, whereas for the Epicureans, and the 17th century 'mechanical' philosophers, there is no intentionality in nature except where there are animal minds and bodies.” MindBodyAnimalSawsCenturyIntelligentPhilosopherMind And BodyIntentionality17th CenturyEpicurean Author:Catherine Wilson