Catherine Z. Elgin
Miscellaneous Papers

• Nature's Handmaid, Art (Thinking about Science and Reflecting on Art: Bringing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Science Together, ed. Steven French. London: Routledge, 2017, pp. 27-40)
  Abstract: Art, like science, advances understanding. I argue scientific experiments and works of art use the same devices to disclose aspects of the world. Both create contexts that enable them to exemplify features that are ordinarily difficult to discern. I discuss the cognitive functions of the emotions, arguing that the arts provide a venue for refining and our emotional range and exploiting emotions' cognitive deliverances. Finally I discuss response-dependent properties (e.g., being green or being ugly). These are properties that owe their identities to responses they evoke. The arts sensitize us to such properties. Moreover, by refining our sensibilities, they may actually create new properties.
  
  
• Nominalism, Realism and Objectivity (Synthese, 2016, 1-16.)
  Abstract: I argue that constructive nominalism is preferable to scientific realism. Rather than reflecting without distortion the way the mind-independent world is, theories refract. They provide an understanding of the world as modulated by a particular theory. Truth is defined within a theoretical framework rather than outside of it. This does not undermine objectivity, for an assertion contains a reference to the framework in terms of which its truth is claimed
  
  
• The Fusion of Fact and Value (Iride 20, 2007, 83-101 (in Italian).)
  
  
• Changing Core Values (Newsletter for the Study of East Asian Civilizations, September 2005, 20-28.)
  
  
• Originals, Copies and Fakes (Proceedings of the Gesselschaft für Analytische Philosophie, Mentis, 2001, 271-287.)
  Abstract: I argue that attribution is a mechanism for locating paintings in bodies of works whose interpretations shed light on one another. Since they are bound to diverge from their originals somewhere, forgeries corrupt those bodies of works, increasing the likelihood of misunderstanding. This raises the question: why is it acceptable to use slides and reproductions in studying art? I argue that because slides and reproductions are recognized as pictures of their originals, they are not mistaken for the originals. I discuss the semantic and epistemic functions such copies perform and show how they advance understanding.
  
  
• Line Drawing (Dialektik, 3, 1996, 81-93.)
  Abstract: I argue that without the analytic/synthetic distinction there can be no One True Theory of The World. In constructing and mastering a language, we begin with cases we consider clear, then extend, correct, and refine them to achieve a system of thought in reflective equilibrium. In so doing, we are sensitive to the interests, objectives, methods, and standards of the system they figure in. To achieve reflective equilibrium, tradeoffs have to be made. A variety of tradeoffs may be equally good on balance. Pluralism results. For systems of thought that draw their lines in different places are equally tenable. The sentences they contain are all true.
  
  
• Scheffler's Symbols (Synthese, 94, 1993, 3-12.)
  Abstract: ‘Scheffler's Symbols’ provides an overview of Israel Scheffler's wide-ranging contributions to philosophy, showing how they are engendered by and figure in a powerful nominalistic theory of symbols.