David Wiggins
Studies what makes a thing stay the same through time, and imagines the case of a person who divides like an amoeba.
Life
David Wiggins, born in 1933 in London, is a British philosopher, long a professor at Oxford (Wykeham Professor of Logic until 2000). He renewed the question of identity: what makes a thing stay the same over time depends on the kind of thing it is. He has also written on values, truth and needs in ethics.
Main works
Studies identity and continuity through space-time.
Argues that identity depends on the substance concept under which a thing falls.
Essays on morality, truth and what matters to us.
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceA person is a living animal, not a separate soul, though not reducible to simple physical parts.
Wiggins, Sameness and Substance Renewed (2001)
He draws on Aristotle: ethics is about practical wisdom and the sort of life a good person leads.
Wiggins, Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality (2006)
Moral values depend on how humans feel and react, yet they can be judged right or wrong: a middle path he calls sensible subjectivism.
Wiggins, Needs, Values, Truth (1987)