Derek parfit: his life and thought

Abstract

“I shall not try to contribute to the discussion of his philosophy, because although I am also a philosopher, I am not really a Parfit scholar. This must sound like something earlier jurists might have called “petty treason” - the betrayal of a husband by a wife - but Derek and I agreed relatively early on that it would be better on the whole for us to pursue our work separately. This was partly because we had somewhat different interests and very different ways of working. But it was mainly because, as any student or colleague of Derek’s knows well, there was no natural end to a discussion of any subject with which he was engaged. Once you had started, it was as though some philosophical Ancient Mariner had fixed you with his glittering eye and made escape impossible until the story was finished; and as it never was finished, serious engagement with his work, especially when we were in the same house, would have expanded to fill the whole of life”