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Date: September 1, 1998
Margaret D. Wilson, Philosopher and Environmental Activist, Dies
Princeton, N.J. -- Margaret Dauler Wilson, 59, Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, died on August 27, 1998, at the Medical Center of Princeton.
A philosopher with focal interests in the history of early modern philosophy, Wilson had also done work in the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of mind, and the theory of perception. Recent teaching and research interests also included issues involved in attributing mental states and moral status to animals, as well as environmental ethics. Author of Descartes (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), as well as many articles on l7th- and 18th-century metaphysics and epistemology, Wilson was the editor of The Essential Descartes (New American Library, 1969) and co-editor (with D. Brock and R. Kuhns) of Philosophy: An Introduction (Appleton-Century-Croft, 1972). At the time of her death she had just completed work on a collection of her essays, Ideas and Mechanism, that is to be published shortly by the Princeton University Press.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1939, Wilson received her A.B. from Vassar College in 1960, and her Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1965. She was Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Harvard in 1960-1961 and studied at Oxford University on a Marshall Fellowship in 1963-1964.
Wilson was an assistant professor of philosophy at Columbia University from 1965-1967, then assistant professor at the Rockefeller Institute (now University) for three years. While at Rockefeller she also taught part-time at Barnard College (1969-1970) as visiting assistant professor.
In 1970 she joined the Princeton faculty as associate professor of philosophy, and she was promoted to professor in 1975. Wilson became Stuart Professor earlier this year. She served as director of graduate studies, as vice chair, and acting chair of her department, and also on a number of University committees. At Princeton, Wilson taught undergraduate courses in Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz; Philosophy of Religion; and early modern philosophy, and graduate seminars in Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, and other early modern philosophers. During the nearly 30 years of her tenure, she was responsible for training a distinguished group of scholars in her specialty.
Wilson was signally honored by her profession: she held Guggenheim and ACLS fellowships (in 1977-1978 and 1982-1983, respectively), she was a Centennial Medalist of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1989, and she was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992. In 1994, Wilson received Princeton University's Howard T. Behrman Award for distinguished achievement in the humanities.
Active in professional organizations, Wilson served as vice-president of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association for 1993-94, and as President for 1994-1995. She also served on a number of A.P.A. committees, including the Subcommittee on the Status of Women in the Profession. President of the Leibniz Society of North America from 1985-1990, she was a member of numerous other associations, including the Hobbes Society, the Hume Society, the North American Spinoza Society, and the British Society for the History of Philosophy. Wilson served as a juror for the Arts and Humanities for the 1997 Heinz Foundation Awards.
Wilson also devoted significant amounts of time and energy to a number of environmental, population, and animal welfare issues. She was a member of the Franklin Township, New Jersey Planning Board from 1988 to 1992 and the Franklin Township Environmental Commission from 1988 to 1995.
Wilson combined her love of conservation and wildlife preservation with travel to various parts of the world to visit environmentally sensitive areas. In just the last year she and her husband, Emmett, completed a series of trips incorporating these interests and concerns. Starting in August, 1997, they traveled to Brazil to the coastal and Amazon rain forests and to the Pantanal wetlands; to northern Arizona to view the Grand Canyon and the Painted Desert; to Antarctica to observe various species of penguins and other birds, and seals; to southeastern Arizona for the bird migrations near the Mexican border; to Baja California for the gray whales and their calves at Laguna San Ignacio; and to Florida to watch the nesting and hatching of green and loggerhead turtles. A trip to the Galapagos Islands had long been planned for the week in which she died.
An avid mystery fan, Wilson found time to read approximately 300 mystery and detective novels a year.
She is survived by her husband, Emmett Wilson, Jr., of Princeton, a brother, L. Van V. Dauler, Jr., of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania., and a nephew, Cameron Dauler, of Boston, Massachusetts. A private burial service will take place in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. A memorial service will be held in the Princeton University Chapel at a later date.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be sent to the New Jersey Audubon Society, 9 Hardscrabble Road Box 126, Bernardsville, N.J. 07924; the World Wildlife Fund, 1250 Twenty-fourth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037; and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 810 Seventh Avenue, New York, N.Y., 10019, or to similar organizations.