Alice Crary

Alice Crary
Nathaniel Hupert · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Name	Alice Crary
Birth date	20th century
Nationality	American
Occupation	Philosopher
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Institutions	Columbia University; New School for Social Research; Harvard University; University of Oxford

Alice Crary is an American philosopher known for work in ethics, moral psychology, epistemology, and feminist philosophy. She has written on the intersections of moral perception, attention, linguistic practice, and issues of justice, contributing to debates associated with analytic ethics, feminist theory, and the philosophy of mind. Crary's work engages with figures and institutions across contemporary Anglo-American philosophy and continental traditions.

Early life and education

Crary completed undergraduate and graduate studies in contexts linked to Harvard University and University of Oxford-style programs, engaging with traditions associated with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and G. E. Moore in analytic philosophy as well as with figures like Simone de Beauvoir, Iris Murdoch, and Martha Nussbaum in ethical theory. Her education involved study at institutions and summer programs connected to Radcliffe College, Cambridge University, and transatlantic academic exchanges involving Oxford Tutorial-style supervision and seminars referencing debates sparked by Elizabeth Anscombe and Philippa Foot. During formative years she participated in conferences and workshops alongside scholars from Columbia University, New School for Social Research, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Academic career and positions

Crary has held faculty and visiting positions at prominent universities including Columbia University and New School for Social Research, contributing to departments connected with figures like John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, Charles Taylor, and Judith Butler. Her appointments placed her within networks involving Harvard University philosophers, University of Oxford faculties, and research centers associated with Kennedy School of Government-adjacent ethics programs. She has been a participant in symposia organized by American Philosophical Association, Society for Women in Philosophy, and interdepartmental initiatives involving Princeton University, Yale University, and Stanford University.

Philosophical work and contributions

Crary's philosophical contributions focus on moral perception, normative reasoning, and critiques of instrumentalism across debates influenced by Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Aristotle, and David Hume. She advances a view that moral claims are grounded in perceptual and attentional capacities drawing on discussions in the philosophy of mind by Gilbert Ryle, Wilfrid Sellars, and G. E. Moore, while engaging feminist interventions from Simone de Beauvoir, Patricia Hill Collins, and bell hooks. Crary critiques forms of ethical abstraction linked to utilitarianism traceable to Jeremy Bentham and Henry Sidgwick, defending a sensitivity to lived moral experience discussed by Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil. Her work interrogates epistemic practices related to testimony and trust in traditions shaped by Elizabeth Anderson, Lynne Rudder Baker, and Alison Jaggar, and she dialogues with contemporary moral epistemologists such as Jonathan Dancy, Peter Strawson, and Christine Korsgaard.

She is known for integrating Wittgensteinian attention to language-games and forms of life with feminist critiques of exclusion and marginalization rooted in conversations with Iris Marion Young, Nancy Fraser, and Judith Butler. Crary has contributed to debates about animal ethics that intersect with work by Peter Singer, Tom Regan, and Martha Nussbaum, while also addressing issues in disability studies linked to Susan Wendell and Tom Shakespeare. Her approach has influenced discussions at venues like Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association and interdisciplinary forums involving Philosophical Review, Ethics, and Hypatia.

Major publications

Crary's major books and edited collections have been widely cited in analytic and feminist literatures. Key works include volumes that dialogue with scholarship by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Immanuel Kant, John Rawls, Martha Nussbaum, and Simone de Beauvoir, and chapters appearing in anthologies alongside essays by Judith Jarvis Thomson, Philippa Foot, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Christine Korsgaard. She has contributed articles to journals such as Ethics, Philosophical Review, Hypatia, and Journal of Philosophy, engaging interlocutors like T. M. Scanlon, Christine Korsgaard, David Wiggins, and Susan Moller Okin.

Awards and honors

Crary's scholarly contributions have been recognized through fellowships and honors associated with institutions including British Academy-style fellowships, grants from organizations similar to the National Endowment for the Humanities, and awards granted through bodies such as American Philosophical Association committees and university research prizes at Columbia University and New School for Social Research. She has been invited to deliver named lectures at forums connected to Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, and international conferences affiliated with University of Oxford and Cambridge University.

Category:American philosophers Category:Feminist philosophers Category:Ethicists