Dorothy Margaret Doig Edgington FBA (née Milne, born 29 April 1941) is a British philosopher active 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 ...

and

philosophical logic Understood in a narrow sense, philosophical logic is the area of logic that studies the application of logical methods to philosophical problems, often in the form of extended logical systems like modal logic. Some theorists conceive philosophic ...

. She is particularly known for her work on the logic of

conditionals Conditional (if then) may refer to: *Causal conditional, if X then Y, where X is a cause of Y *Conditional probability, the probability of an event A given that another event B *Conditional proof, in logic: a proof that asserts a conditional, a ...

and

vagueness In linguistics and philosophy, a vague predicate is one which gives rise to borderline cases. For example, the English adjective "tall" is vague since it is not clearly true or false for someone of middling height. By contrast, the word " prime" ...

Life and education

Dorothy Edgington was born on 29 April 1941 to Edward Milne and his wife Rhoda née Blair. She attended St Leonards School before going to

St Hilda's College, Oxford St Hilda's College (full name = Principal and Council of St. Hilda's College, Oxford) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. The college is named after the Anglo-Saxon saint Hilda of Whitby and was founded in 1893 as a ...

to read PPE. She obtained her BA in 1964, followed in 1967 by a BPhil at

Nuffield College, Oxford Nuffield College () is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is a graduate college specialising in the social sciences, particularly economics, politics and sociology. N ...

Career

Most of Edgington's career was spent at

Birkbeck College Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public research university located in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. Established in 1823 as the London Mechanics' ...

. In 1968, her first academic post was as a Lecturer in Philosophy at Birkbeck, remaining there until 1996. From 1996 until 2001, she was appointed Fellow of

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 ...

. This was followed by a professorship at Birkbeck from 2001 to 2003. She was then Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

from 2003 until 2006. Currently, she is a

professor emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...

and a Fellow of

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College ( ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by Bishop of Winchester William of Waynflete. It is one of the wealthiest Oxford colleges, as of 2022, and ...

who teaches at Birkbeck again part-time.

hosts a lecture series named after Edgington. The lectures were given by

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 ...

in 2012, given by

Rae Langton Rae Helen Langton, FBA (born 14 February 1961) is an Australian-British professor of philosophy. She is currently the Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. She has published widely on Immanuel Kant's philosophy, m ...

in 2014, and the Edgington Lectures were given by

Kit Fine Kit Fine (born 26 March 1946) is a British philosopher, currently university professor and Silver Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics at New York University. Prior to joining the philosophy department of NYU in 1997, he taught at the Unive ...

in 2016. From 2004 to 2005, she was President of the Mind Association. Later, she became 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 2007 to 2008. She is a Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

. In 2023, she was elected a member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

Selected publications

* 'The Paradox of Knowability' (1985), ''Mind'' 94:557–568. Presents a resolution of Fitch's paradox based on

situation semantics In situation theory, situation semantics (pioneered by Jon Barwise and John Perry in the early 1980s) attempts to provide a solid theoretical foundation for reasoning about common-sense and real world situations, typically in the context of the ...

. * 'On Conditionals' (1995), ''Mind'' 104:235–329. Defends an epistemic theory of conditionals against a truth-functional one, as part of the Mind's state of the art series. * 'Vagueness by Degrees'. In Rosanna Keefe & Peter Smith (eds.), ''Vagueness: A Reader''. MIT Press (1997) * 'Counterfactuals and the Benefit of Hindsight'. In Phil Dowe & Paul Noordhof (eds.), ''Cause and Chance: Causation in an Indeterministic World''. Routledge (2004) *
Conditionals
' (2006), ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Edgington, Dorothy 1941 births Living people 20th-century British philosophers 21st-century British philosophers Analytic philosophers British women philosophers Academics of Birkbeck, University of London Waynflete Professors of Metaphysical Philosophy Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford Fellows of the British Academy Members of Academia Europaea Presidents of the Aristotelian Society