Parfit - by David Edmonds

About the Book

"From the bestselling coauthor of Wittgenstein's Poker, an entertaining and illuminating biography of a brilliant philosopher who tried to rescue morality from nihilismDerek Parfit (1942-2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Regarded by some as the greatest moral thinker since John Stuart Mill, 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"--

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"Lively and amusing. . . . It is likely to be the place where some readers with less philosophical training first encounter teletransporter cases, future Tuesday indifference, and the repugnant conclusion. They are in good hands. . . . A great read."---David Phillips, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

"This superb biography reveals him as a genius to some, a fool to others, eccentric to all."-- "The Telegraph"

"David Edmonds, himself philosophically trained, is a very engaging writer on the subject of philosophers' lives. . . . He treats his reader with respect, but knows that a spoonful of gossip, or biography, helps the philosophy go down. I recommend [Parfit] highly."---Theodore Dalrymple, The Lamp

"A FiveBooks Best Philosophy Book of the Year"

"A Prospect Book of the Year: Lives"

"A Seminary Co-Op Notable Book of the Year"

"Dave Edmonds is an adept populariser of recondite ideas and his book about Derek Parfit, the mysterious and reclusive philosopher who spent most of his adult life at All Souls College, is essential reading."---Jason Cowley, The Times

"The best intellectual biography I've ever read."---Paul Bloom, author of The Sweet Spot

"A lively new biography."-- "The Economist"

"A sharp and sympathetic biography."---Michael Gibson, City Journal

"It's hard to imagine a more sympathetic, fair-minded, and appropriately skilled biographer for Parfit than David Edmonds. . . . [An] excellent biography."---Frank B. Farrell, Commonweal Magazine

"

[Edmonds] manages to make Parfit's cloistered, eccentric life of the mind a source of endless astonishment. . . .It is surely the best biography of a philosopher since Ray Monk's hitherto peerless Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius.

"---Julian Baggini, Prospect

"David Edmonds has written an exemplary biography. It is thorough, revealing, and yet sympathetic, and written by someone who admires the life of someone he nevertheless confesses to find a very puzzling subject."---Simon Blackburn, Society

"Parfit made contributions to questions about identity, future generations, and freedom, but his central project was to argue for the objective nature of morality. Edmonds's companionable biography tracks this work while assembling a portrait of how Parfit grew from a young boy with strong moral intuitions to a kind, perfectionistic man who believed that the stakes of his mission were so high that he should devote almost all of his waking hours to it."-- "New Yorker"

"This fascinating 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

"

Edmonds has pulled it off, and few could be better suited to the task. . . . He writes stylishly, with a light touch. The book is packed with anecdotes that leaven the discussion of Parfit's weighty professional output.

"---Sarah Richmond, Times Literary Supplement

"Superb, terrific. . . [Edmonds] reconstructs a whole new world."---Cass Sunstein

"[A] gripping biography."---Joe Humphreys, The Irish Times

"Parfit is written engagingly, ably balancing philosophy and biography. Readers outside the field will find Edmonds's descriptions of Parfit's philosophical contributions fascinating and clear. . . . Parfit's philosophy was philosophy at its best and Parfit is an excellent introduction to that philosophy and the life in which it grew to occupy such a central role."---Oliver Traldi, Washington Post

"Offering more than a thinker's life and career, Parfit is a crash course in the evolution of moral philosophy, and the best account I have read of what "doing philosophy" entails. . . . Superb."---Heller McAlpin, Wall Street Journal

"Rich and dense. . . . Parfit is a tremendous fabric of stories, memories, references, personal testimonies, research material and original quotations, and it is an equally, tremendously, heartfelt invitation to feel and engage with the rhythm and presence of a life. It is absorbing, fascinating, replete with occasions for pause and reflection, full of echoes of lives past, lives lived, lives almost obsessively examined."---Mika Provata-Carlone, Bookanista

"Very readable."---Nigel Warburton, The New European

"A fascinating and important person. I do highly recommend the biography."---Diane Coyle, Enlightened Economist

"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

About the Author

David Edmonds is a writer and philosopher whose many critically acclaimed books have been translated into more than two dozen languages. He is the author of The Murder of Professor Schlick and Would You Kill the Fat Man? (both Princeton) and the coauthor, with John Eidinow, of the international bestseller Wittgenstein's Poker. He and Nigel Warburton cohost the popular Philosophy Bites podcast.