David Wiggins
David Wiggins | |
|---|---|
| Born | 8 March 1933 London,England |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Brasenose College, Oxford |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Philosophy |
| Sub-discipline | |
| School or tradition | |
| Institutions | |
| Main interests | |
| Notable ideas | Conceptualist realism |
| Influenced | |
David WigginsFBA(born 1933) is an Englishmoralphilosopher,metaphysician,and philosophicallogicianworking especially onidentityand issues inmeta-ethics.
Biography[edit]
David Wiggins was born on 8 March 1933 inLondon,[1]the son of Norman and Diana Wiggins (née Priestley).[2]He attendedSt Paul's Schoolbefore reading philosophy atBrasenose College, Oxford,where he obtained a first-class degree.[3]His tutor wasJ. L. Ackrill.[4]
After completing hisNational Service,he joined the Civil Service and was appointed Assistant Principal in theColonial Office,1957–8. He left the Civil Service and was Jane Eliza Proctor Visiting Fellow atPrinceton Universityin 1958–9. Returning to Oxford, he was Lecturer, 1959, then Fellow and Lecturer, 1960–7, atNew College.After that, he was Chair of Philosophy atBedford College, London,1967–80; Fellow and Praelector in Philosophy atUniversity College, Oxford,1981–9; and Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London, 1989–94; and Wykeham Professor of Logic and Fellow of New College, Oxford, 1994–2000.[5]
Wiggins was made afellow of the British Academyin 1978. He was also President of theAristotelian Societyfrom 1999 to 2000. He was elected a foreign honorary member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciencesin 1992.
Philosophical work[edit]
Wiggins is well known for his work inmetaphysics,particularly identity. In hisSameness and Substance(Oxford, 1980), he proposedconceptualist realism,a position according to which our conceptual framework maps reality.[6]According to philosopher Harold Noonan:
The most influential part of Wiggins's work has been in metaphysics, where he has developed a fundamentallyAristotelianconception of substance, enriched by insights drawn fromPutnam(1975) andKripke (1980).His works also contain influential discussions of the problem ofpersonal identity,which Wiggins elucidatesviaa conception that he calls the "Animal Attribute View."[7]
He has also made an influential contribution toethics.His 2006 book,Ethics. Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Moralitydefends a position he calls "moral objectivism".
He has written widely on other areas includingphilosophy of language,epistemology,aestheticsandpolitical philosophy.
A Festschrift,Essays for David Wigginswas published in 1996.[8]
Legacy[edit]
Wiggins' distinguished pupils include:John McDowell,Derek Parfit,Jonathan Westphal,Timothy Williamson,James Anthony Harris,andCheryl Misak.
Selected writings[edit]
Books[edit]
- Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity(Oxford, 1967)
- Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life(Proceedings of the British Academy, 1976)
- Sameness and Substance(Harvard, 1980)
- Needs, Values, Truth(1987, 3rd ed., 1998, rev. 2002)
- Sameness and Substance Renewed(Cambridge, 2001)
- Ethics. Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality(Harvard, 2006)
- Solidarity and the Root of the Ethical(2008)
- Continuants. Their Activity, Their Being, and Their Identity(Oxford, 2016)
Articles[edit]
- "On Being in the Same Place at the same time",Philosophical Review,vol. 77 (1968), pp. 90–95.
- "On Sentence-sense, Word-sense and Difference of Word-sense: Towards a Philosophical Theory of Dictionaries" (1971)[9](link)
- "Towards a reasonable libertarianism" (Essays on Freedom of Action,Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973)
- "Weakness of Will Commensurability, and the Objects of Deliberation and Desire" (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,1978)
- "A Sensible Subjectivism?" (Needs, Values, Truth: Essays in the Philosophy of Value,New York: Oxford University Press, 1987, 185–214)
References[edit]
- ^"Wiggins, David (1933–)"inThe Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy(2006)
- ^'Who's Who 2012, London, A. & C. Black, London: 2012, 2466)
- ^Williams, S. G. (2005). "Wiggins, David (1933-)". In Brown, Stuart (ed.).Dictionary of Twentieth Century British Philosophers.Thoemmes. p. 1123.
- ^"Professor J.L. Ackrill".Obituary.London: Times Newspapers. 20 December 2007.Retrieved19 June2008.
- ^'Who's Who 2012, London, A. & C. Black, London: 2012, 2466)
- ^A. M. Ferner,Organisms and Personal Identity: Individuation and the Work of David Wiggins,Routledge, 2016, p. 28.
- ^Noonan, H., 2005. "David Wiggins." InEncyclopedia of Philosophy.London: Macmillan.(excerpt)
- ^Lovibond, Sabrina; Williams, S.G., eds. (1996).Essays for David Wiggins: Identity, Truth and Value.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- ^In Danny D. Steinberg and Leon A. Jakobovits (edd.) Semantics: An Interdisciplinary Reader in Philosophy, Linguistics and Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 14-34.
External links[edit]
- Picture of Wiggins- on the Ryle Room page.
| International | |
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| National | |
| Academics | |
| Other | |
- 1933 births
- 20th-century English philosophers
- 20th-century British essayists
- 21st-century English philosophers
- 21st-century British essayists
- Analytic philosophers
- Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford
- Aristotelian philosophers
- British male essayists
- English logicians
- English male non-fiction writers
- British epistemologists
- Fellows of New College, Oxford
- Fellows of the British Academy
- Fellows of University College, Oxford
- Lecturers
- Living people
- Metaphilosophers
- British metaphysicians
- Ontologists
- British philosophers of art
- British philosophers of language
- British philosophers of logic
- British philosophers of mind
- British philosophy academics
- Philosophy writers
- English political philosophers
- Presidents of the Aristotelian Society
- Wykeham Professors of Logic