Derek Parfit
Born
December 11, 1942
Died
January 01, 2017
Genre
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Reasons and Persons
14 editions
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published
1984
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On What Matters: Volume One
8 editions
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published
2011
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On What Matters: Volumes 1 & 2 (2 Volumes)
2 editions
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published
2011
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On What Matters: Volume Two
5 editions
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published
2011
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On What Matters: Volume 3
3 editions
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published
2017
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Why Anything? Why This?
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Personal Identity
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Prudencia, Moralidad Y El Dilema Del Prisionero
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Jämlikhet eller prioritet
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published
1991
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Two Concepts of Rules
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“My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness. When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air.”
― Reasons and Persons
― Reasons and Persons
“We ought not to do to our future selves what it would be wrong to do to other people.”
― Reasons and Persons
― Reasons and Persons
“What now matters most is how we respond to various risks to the survival of humanity. We are creating some of these risks, and discovering how we could respond to these and other risks. If we reduce these risks, and humanity survives the next few centuries, our descendants or successors could end these risks by spreading through this galaxy.
Life can be wonderful as well as terrible, and we shall increasingly have the power to make life good. Since human history may be only just beginning, we can expect that future humans, or supra-humans, may achieve some great goods that we cannot now even imagine. In Nietzsche’s words, there has never been such a new dawn and clear horizon, and such an open sea.
If we are the only rational beings in the Universe, as some recent evidence suggests, it matters even more whether we shall have descendants or successors during the billions of years in which that would be possible. Some of our successors might live lives and create worlds that, though failing to justify past suffering, would give us all, including some of those who have suffered, reasons to be glad that the Universe exists.”
― On What Matters: Volume 3
Life can be wonderful as well as terrible, and we shall increasingly have the power to make life good. Since human history may be only just beginning, we can expect that future humans, or supra-humans, may achieve some great goods that we cannot now even imagine. In Nietzsche’s words, there has never been such a new dawn and clear horizon, and such an open sea.
If we are the only rational beings in the Universe, as some recent evidence suggests, it matters even more whether we shall have descendants or successors during the billions of years in which that would be possible. Some of our successors might live lives and create worlds that, though failing to justify past suffering, would give us all, including some of those who have suffered, reasons to be glad that the Universe exists.”
― On What Matters: Volume 3
Topics Mentioning This Author
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Philosophy: Which philosopher can help us cope better with our own mortality? | 29 | 258 | Apr 10, 2022 05:56AM |