David Wiggins (born 1933) is an English

moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. ...

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

, metaphysician, and philosophical

logician Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure of arg ...

working especially on identity and issues in

meta-ethics In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, ground, and meaning of moral judgment, ethical belief, or values. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normativ ...

Biography

David Wiggins was born on 8 March 1933 in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, the son of Norman and Diana Wiggins (née Priestley). He attended St Paul's School before reading philosophy at

Brasenose College, Oxford Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The l ...

, where he obtained a first-class degree. His tutor was J. L. Ackrill. After completing his

National Service National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...

, he joined the Civil Service and was appointed Assistant Principal in the

Colonial Office The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created in 1768 from the Southern Department to deal with colonial affairs in North America (particularly the Thirteen Colo ...

, 1957–8. He left the Civil Service and was Jane Eliza Proctor Visiting Fellow at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 1958–9. Returning to Oxford, he was Lecturer, 1959, then Fellow and Lecturer, 1960–7, at New College. After that, he was Chair of Philosophy at

Bedford College, London Bedford College was founded in London in 1849 as the first higher education college for women in the United Kingdom. In 1900, it became a constituent of the University of London. Having played a leading role in the advancement of women in highe ...

, 1967–80; Fellow and Praelector in Philosophy at

University College, Oxford University College, formally The Master and Fellows of the College of the Great Hall of the University commonly called University College in the University of Oxford and colloquially referred to as "Univ", is a Colleges of the University of Oxf ...

, 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. Wiggins was made a

fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (post-nominal letters FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in t ...

in 1978. He was also President of the

Aristotelian Society The Aristotelian Society for the Systematic Study of Philosophy, more generally known as the Aristotelian Society, is a philosophical society in London. History Aristotelian Society was founded at a meeting on 19 April 1880, at 17 Bloomsbury Squar ...

from 1999 to 2000. He was elected a foreign honorary member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

in 1992.

Philosophical work

Wiggins is well known for his work in

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...

, particularly identity. In his ''Sameness and Substance'' (Oxford, 1980), he proposed conceptualist realism, a position according to which our conceptual framework maps reality. According to philosopher Harold Noonan: He has also made an influential contribution to

ethics Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

. His 2006 book, ''Ethics. Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality'' defends a position he calls "moral objectivism". He has written widely on other areas including

philosophy of language Philosophy of language refers to the philosophical study of the nature of language. It investigates the relationship between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of Meaning (philosophy), me ...

epistemology Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...

aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...

and

political philosophy Political philosophy studies the theoretical and conceptual foundations of politics. It examines the nature, scope, and Political legitimacy, legitimacy of political institutions, such as State (polity), states. This field investigates different ...

. A Festschrift, ''Essays for David Wiggins'' was published in 1996.

Legacy

Wiggins' distinguished pupils include:

John McDowell John Henry McDowell (born 7 March 1942) is a South African philosopher, formerly a fellow of University College, Oxford, and now university professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Although he has written on metaphysics, epistemology, anci ...

Derek Parfit Derek Antony Parfit (; 11 December 1942 – 2 January 2017) was a British philosopher who specialised in personal identity, rationality, and ethics. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of the lat ...

, Jonathan Westphal, Timothy Williamson, James Anthony Harris, and Cheryl Misak.

Selected writings

Books

* ''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

* "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)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.(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

External links

Picture of Wiggins
- on the Ryle Room page. {{DEFAULTSORT:Wiggins, David 1933 births Living people 20th-century English philosophers 21st-century English philosophers Analytic philosophers Metaphysicians Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of New College, Oxford Fellows of University College, Oxford Wykeham Professors of Logic British logicians British ethicists Presidents of the Aristotelian Society