David Wiggins facts for kids

David Wiggins is a famous English philosopher. He was born in 1933. He is known for his work on ethics (which is about right and wrong) and metaphysics (which explores the basic nature of reality). He also studies logic, which is about correct reasoning.

Life and Education

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

Early Career and Academia

After serving in the military, Wiggins worked for the government for a short time. He was an Assistant Principal in the Colonial Office from 1957 to 1958. Then, he became a visiting scholar at Princeton University in the United States.

He returned to Oxford University in 1959. He worked as a lecturer and fellow at New College until 1967. Later, he became a professor at several other universities. These included Bedford College, London and University College, Oxford. He also taught at Birkbeck College, London. From 1994 to 2000, he was a special professor of Logic at New College, Oxford.

Awards and Recognition

David Wiggins received many honors for his work. In 1978, he became a fellow of the British Academy. This is a very respected group for experts in humanities and social sciences. He was also the President of the Aristotelian Society from 1999 to 2000. In 1992, he was made an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

What He Studied

Wiggins is famous for his ideas in metaphysics. This part of philosophy looks at what is real and how things exist. He focused a lot on the idea of identity. This means what makes something the same thing over time.

Ideas on Reality

In his book Sameness and Substance (1980), he talked about "conceptualist realism." This idea suggests that how we think about the world helps us understand what is real. Another philosopher, Harold Noonan, said that Wiggins's work on substance is very important. It builds on ideas from ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.

Wiggins also explored personal identity. This is about what makes a person the same person throughout their life. He called his idea the "Animal Attribute View."

Ideas on Morality

He also made important contributions to ethics. In his 2006 book, Ethics. Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality, he supported "moral objectivism." This idea suggests that there are some moral truths that are true for everyone, not just opinions.

Wiggins wrote about many other topics too. These include the philosophy of language, epistemology (the study of knowledge), aesthetics (the study of beauty), and political philosophy.

His Students

Many of David Wiggins's students became well-known philosophers themselves. Some of his distinguished pupils include John McDowell, Derek Parfit, Timothy Williamson, and Cheryl Misak.

Books and Articles

David Wiggins wrote many books and articles. These works share his ideas with other philosophers and students.

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)
• "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