Description

From the bestselling coauthor of Wittgenstein’s Poker, an entertaining and illuminating biography of a brilliant philosopher who tried to rescue morality from nihilism

Derek Parfit (1942-2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Widely regarded as one of the greatest moral thinkers of the past hundred years, Parfit was anything but a public intellectual. Yet his ideas have shaped the way philosophers think about things that affect us all: equality, altruism, what we owe to future generations, and even what it means to be a person. In Parfit, David Edmonds presents the first biography of an intriguing, obsessive, and eccentric genius.

Believing that we should be less concerned with ourselves and more with the common good, Parfit dedicated himself to the pursuit of philosophical progress to an extraordinary degree. He always wore gray trousers and a white shirt so as not to lose precious time picking out clothes, he varied his diet as little as possible, and he had only one serious non-philosophical interest: taking photos of Oxford, Venice, and St. Petersburg. In the latter half of his life, he single-mindedly devoted himself to a desperate attempt to rescue secular morality-morality without God-by arguing that it has an objective, rational basis. For Parfit, the stakes could scarcely have been higher. If he couldn’t demonstrate that there are objective facts about right and wrong, he believed, his life was futile and all our lives were meaningless.

Connecting Parfit’s work and life and offering a clear introduction to his profound and challenging ideas, Parfit is a powerful portrait of an extraordinary thinker who continues to have a remarkable influence on the world of ideas.

Publisher Review

"This biography combines lucid philosophical exegesis with astute psychological analysis. Edmonds clearly loves his subject. . . and he documents his life with exhaustive honesty."---Jane O'Grady, Literary Review "This is both a fabulous book and a necessary biography of a significant Oxford academic who a lot of people have sort of heard of but can't quite place. . . . It will be a curiously dull reader to complete this volume and not be affected by some of the powerful ideas that are raised along the way."---Richard Lofthouse, QUAD "A fascinating and important person. I do highly recommend the biography."---Diane Coyle, Enlightened Economist