- published: 10 Oct 2015
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Derek Parfit (born December 11, 1942; China) is a British philosopher who specializes in problems of personal identity, rationality and ethics, and the relations between them. His 1984 book Reasons and Persons (described by Alan Ryan in The Sunday Times as "something close to a work of genius") has been very influential. His most recent book, On What Matters (2011), has already been widely discussed, having circulated in draft form for many years. He has worked at Oxford for the whole of his academic career, and is presently an Emeritus Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He is also a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at New York University, Harvard University, and Rutgers University. He is married to the philosopher Janet Radcliffe Richards.
Derek Parfit was born in Chengdu, China to Norman and Jessie Parfit (née Browne), both medical doctors who had moved to Western China in order to teach preventive medicine in missionary hospitals. The family returned to the United Kingdom about a year after Parfit was born, settling in Oxford. Parfit was sent to Eton. He later read Modern History at the University of Oxford, graduating in 1964. In 1965-66 he was Harkness Fellow at Columbia University and Harvard University. He abandoned historical studies for philosophy during the time he held the fellowship. He then returned to Oxford, spending many decades as a fellow of All Souls College.