Fiona Cowie
Fiona Cowie (August 21, 1963-December 9, 2018) was a professor of philosophy at California Institute of Technology. She specialized in the philosophy of mind, of biology, and of linguistics.
Life
[edit]Fiona Cowie was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1963.[1] She gained her MA at Princeton University in 1991,[1] and a PhD in philosophy, also at Princeton, in 1994.[2] She joined the philosophy faculty at California Institute of Technology in 1992.[3] She became a full professor there in 2010.[1] She specialized in the philosophy of mind, of biology, and of linguistics.[3]
Awards and distinctions
[edit]Cowie's book What's Within? Nativism Reconsidered[4] won the 1999 Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities.[1] The book argued that multiple features of the mind are learnt, not innate, opposing Jerry Fodor's view.[2][5]
Works
[edit]Books
[edit]- Cowie, Fiona (1999). What's Within?. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-512384-5.
Articles
[edit]- The logical problem of language acquisition, 1997
- Mad dog nativism, 1998
- On Cussing in Church: In Defence of What's Within?, 2001
- Innateness and language, 2008
- Us, them, and it: Modules, genes, environments and evolution, 2008
- Why isn't Stich an eliminativist?, 2009
Reviews
[edit]- Ask Darwin's Grandma (review of Mean Genes: From Sex to Money to Food: Taming Our Primal Instincts, 2000)
- Of Theft and Honest Toil (review of Mind in Everyday Life and Cognitive Science, 2001)
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d "Caltech Mourns the Passing of Fiona Cowie". California Institute of Technology. 10 December 2018. Retrieved 9 February 2025.
- ^ a b "Fiona Cowie *94". Princeton Alumni Weekly. April 2022. Retrieved 9 February 2025.
- ^ a b Weinberg, Justin (11 December 2018). "Fiona Cowie (1963-2018)". Daily Nous. Retrieved 9 February 2025.
- ^ Cowie 1999.
- ^ "In Memoriam: Fiona Cowie, 1963-2018". Women in Academia Report. 17 December 2018. Retrieved 9 February 2025.
- 1963 births
- 2018 deaths
- 20th-century Australian essayists
- 20th-century Australian non-fiction writers
- 20th-century Australian philosophers
- 20th-century Australian women writers
- 21st-century Australian essayists
- 21st-century Australian non-fiction writers
- 21st-century Australian philosophers
- 21st-century Australian women writers
- Academics from Sydney
- Analytic philosophers
- Australian cognitive scientists
- Australian philosophy academics
- Australian women essayists
- Australian women non-fiction writers
- Australian women philosophers
- California Institute of Technology faculty
- Consciousness researchers and theorists
- Contemporary philosophers
- Empiricists
- Philosophers of language
- Philosophers of linguistics
- Philosophers of mind
- Philosophers of science
- Philosophy writers
- Princeton University alumni