This is a collection of remembrances of Parfit by those who knew him best: his wife, his sister, and his closest colleagues and philosophical collaborators over the years. The collection purposefully avoids treading over the same ground as Edmonds’ famous biography, instead giving anecdotes, life snippets, and very personal remembrances. However, in all, it still gives a very accurate portrait of Parfit’s personality and intellectual pursuits. The philosopher, Johnathan Dancy, suggests, “Parfit thought that correct philosophical thought could free us from an obsessive concern with ourselves and our weal and woe, since the distinction between self and others was not as stark as common sense takes it to be.”
In her essay on their life together, Parfit’s wife, the philosopher, Janet Radcliffe Richards, reminisces, “What I suppose I was gradually discovering was the extremity of the extent to which Derek lived in his mind…. As regards achievement, nearly everything that other people might count as comfort or leisure or enjoyment was sacrificed to his perfectionism in both his philosophical work and his photographs. He wanted to achieve things that he thought had real value in the advancement of knowledge and the production and preservation of things of beauty…. As regards beauty, he was again concerned more with what there was and what there might be than anything he would experience.” She concludes, “He did not want to be a well-rounded human being. He was deeply, essentially, an academic and aesthete, fascinated by the capacities of the human mind in advancing knowledge and creating things of beauty, and he thought of the purpose of his life in terms of advancing such achievements…. He thought it would be appalling if it were true that nothing really mattered…. Also, permanently in the background, were his intense feelings for beauty in art, architecture, the natural world, poetry, and music. My impression is that if he had thought he could produce outstanding work in any of those areas, he might have pursued them, but that he judged that he would not be able to achieve anything of the very highest quality in any of them and had no interest in spending his time on anything less…. What he wanted to do in both areas [of philosophy and photography] was produce something of real objective value, which would in its particular way make the world better than it would have been without it.”
The philosopher, Larry Temkin, suggests about Parfit’s quest for objective truth, “For Derek, the problem of disagreement among epistemic peers regarding the most fundamental truths about ethics was deeply troubling.” Temkin continues by stressing the utter focus of Parfit’s life mission, “Derek not only wrote about future generations, he constantly wrote for future generations. Derek thought in terms of the lasting significance of the truth. Correspondingly, he wrote with the hope, and thought, that his work would still be read for many centuries after he was gone…. Other than books and ice cream, Derek had very few material wants and needs. He didn’t drive a car, own a lavish home, take vacations, dine out extravagantly, have a TV, or have any expensive habits.” The philosopher, Jeff McMahan, relates, “For almost anyone, myself included, a life like Derek’s would be unfulfilling. But he was happy—by which I do not mean that he was subjectively contented, though he was certainly that…. Derek believed, and I agree with him, that there can be various elements in a life that are objectively good for the person in whose life they occur. He referred to this belief as the Objective List Theory of self-interest. He cited as examples “moral goodness, rational activity, the development of one’s own abilities, having children and being a good parent, knowledge, and the awareness of true beauty.” (He also mentions, on the preceding page, loving and being loved by many people.) Derek also suggested, as perhaps the most plausible understanding of well-being, that for these objectively good features of a life to be genuinely good for a person, the person must desire and take pleasure in them.” Parfit, himself, admitted, “My life is my work. I believe I have found some good reasons showing that some things matter objectively, not just because we care about them. If I am wrong, my life has been wasted.” His views on his own death were also somewhat idiosyncratic, “My death will break the more direct relations between my present experiences and future experiences, but it will not break various other relations. There will later be some memories about my life. And there may later be thoughts that are influenced by mine. This is all there is to the fact that there will be no-one living who will be me. Now that I have seen this, my death seems to me less bad.” On the breath of humanity in general Parfit posits, “We shall increasingly have the power to make life good…. It may depend on us and our successors whether it will all be worth it. What matters now is that we avoid ending human history…. We are part of a universe that is starting to understand itself.”
The philosopher, Ingmar Persson, shares some thoughts on Parfit’s method of doing philosophy, “Derek got his philosophical ideas first and foremost by reading and rereading texts—especially Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics—again and again rather than by sitting thinking with closed eyes…. If he was not reading, he would be at his computer, wearing out its keys at a speed that amazed computer people, or in a philosophical discussion with somebody…. Derek’s method was that of an extrovert: as remarked, in his thinking he ruminated on a steady flow of inputs from fellow philosophers, alive and dead…. If possible, Derek would always be hooked up to some medium: if he was not reading or writing, he would listen to music or watch a movie, or view works of art or photos…. So Derek lived on cultural products, but also, I think, he lived chiefly for them, in the sense that he lived in order to contribute to increasing their quantity and quality. His all-consuming passion and mission in life seems to have been to leave as good a record as possible for posterity.” Parfit, himself, claimed, “Most of the world looked better in reproduction than it did in life.” He also admitted, “I want people to admire what I produce.”
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