David Wiggins facts for kids

David Wiggins, born in 1933, is a well-known English philosopher. He studies big questions about right and wrong (this is called moral philosophy). He also explores what things are made of and how they stay the same over time (this is called metaphysics). Wiggins is also a philosophical logician, which means he studies how we think and reason correctly.

About David Wiggins

David Wiggins was born on March 8, 1933, in London, England. His parents were Norman and Diana Wiggins. He went to St Paul's School and then studied philosophy at Brasenose College, Oxford. He earned a top degree there. His teacher was J. L. Ackrill.

After finishing his National Service (a period of military training), Wiggins worked for the government. He was an Assistant Principal in the Colonial Office from 1957 to 1958.

He then became a visiting scholar at Princeton University in the United States. When he returned to Oxford, he became a Lecturer at New College. Later, he became a Professor of Philosophy at Bedford College, London. He also taught at University College, Oxford and Birkbeck College, London. From 1994 to 2000, he was the Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford.

Wiggins became a fellow of the British Academy in 1978. This is a special honor for experts in humanities and social sciences. He was also the President of the Aristotelian Society from 1999 to 2000. This is a leading group for philosophers in the UK. In 1992, he was made an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

His Philosophical Ideas

Wiggins is famous for his work in metaphysics. This part of philosophy asks about the basic nature of reality. He especially focused on identity. This means he studied what makes something the same thing over time, even if it changes.

In his book Sameness and Substance (1980), he introduced an idea called conceptualist realism. This idea suggests that the way we think about the world (our "conceptual framework") matches how reality truly is.

Philosopher Harold Noonan said that Wiggins's work on metaphysics was very important. Wiggins developed an idea of "substance" that came from the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. He also used ideas from other modern philosophers like Hilary Putnam and Saul Kripke.

Wiggins also explored the problem of personal identity. This asks what makes a person the same person throughout their life. He called his view the "Animal Attribute View."

He has also made important contributions to ethics, which is the study of moral principles. In his 2006 book, Ethics. Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality, he supported "moral objectivism." This idea suggests that some moral truths are real and apply to everyone, not just opinions.

Wiggins has written about many other areas of philosophy. These include the philosophy of language (how language works), epistemology (the study of knowledge), aesthetics (the study of beauty and art), and political philosophy (the study of government and society).

In 1996, a special collection of essays called Essays for David Wiggins was published to honor his work.

His Students

Many of David Wiggins's students became important philosophers themselves. Some of his distinguished pupils include:

• John McDowell
• Derek Parfit
• Jonathan Westphal
• Timothy Williamson
• James Anthony Harris
• Cheryl Misak

Selected Books and Articles

David Wiggins has written many books and articles. Here are some of his main works:

Books

• Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity (1967)
• Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life (1976)
• Sameness and Substance (1980)
• Needs, Values, Truth (1987, with later editions)
• Sameness and Substance Renewed (2001)
• Ethics. Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality (2006)
• Solidarity and the Root of the Ethical (2008)
• Continuants. Their Activity, Their Being, and Their Identity (2016)

Articles

• "On Being in the Same Place at the same time" (1968)
• "On Sentence-sense, Word-sense and Difference of Word-sense: Towards a Philosophical Theory of Dictionaries" (1971) (link)
• "Towards a reasonable libertarianism" (1973)
• "Weakness of Will Commensurability, and the Objects of Deliberation and Desire" (1978)
• "A Sensible Subjectivism?" (1987)

See also

In Spanish: David Wiggins para niños