Thoughts on reading David Edmond’s biography on Derek Parfit

To my likely discredit, I read few biographies. My last significant one was Tom Stoppard’s (blog here in 2021). I appreciate that an understanding of what makes greatness, or for instance of what has made economic success, can be instructive for future greatness but I’ve been often put off by the gossiping minutiae of life that biographies hold.  

That said, I do think there is a golden age in women led narrative nonfiction often within or adjacent to the memoir genre. I have read much there led by my insightful sharp reading wife. But those works are not typically biographies. (I will note Joanne Limburg’s Letters to my Weird Sisters: On Autism and Feminism as also a significant read here)

So, I think David Edmonds’ biography of Derek Parfit deserves the Tyler Cowen blurb:

“Derek was perhaps the most important philosopher of his era. This scintillating and insightful portrait of him as one of the best intellectual biographies I have read.”

Edmonds is helped by being a philosopher and philosophy trained himself and also knowing many of the characters in this world. 

I judge perhaps that the small world of academic moral philosophy helps.  The major characters are interconnected and the cast list is not as massive as it would be in history or economics. 

Edmonds also has a style that suits his topic. There is clarity of sentence and thought that (perhaps) echoes some of the writing of Parfit and certain philosopher stylists.  This style and structures fits closer to the “narrative non-fiction” style that has developed in the literature of late.  There is story. There is character led action. (There is more showing than telling)

This is very ably supplemented by clear explanations of tricky philosophical concepts and arguments with precise use of metaphor, thought experiments and relevant quotes to clarify what could be very confusing (and arguably esoteric and - to detractors - irrelevant) ideas.  Edmonds makes them matter and seem relevant to the characters and people involved and hence they matter to me, the reader. 

I’ve now read some previous Edmonds works (and hope to podcast with him) and listened to his audio works (philosophy podcasts and BBC ideas series). Those popular non-fictions works (often co-written) offer clarifying introductions to philosophy ideas and characters (for instance on the trolley/train thought experiment on choosing if you divert a train away from x people towards y people) but to my mind they don’t have the extended character narrative -  the character led action - and the extended exploration of ideas seen through the lens of one extraordinary character, Derek Parfit.

Perhaps - and I have Amit Ghosh echoing here on the “plausibility challenge” of fiction - that if you made Derek Parfit a character in a story or a play, you would find the character implausible. 

But, as we know these events happened, we know that Parfit obsessively took photographs of a building in Venice, he was responsible for the street lamps we have in Oxford; he was responsible for formulating a problem in philosophy (non-identity) and paradoxes (repugnant conclusion amongst others) that had been missed or undiscovered by the the world's great thinkers so far; and his first book, Reasons and Persons, went off like a “neutron bomb” of ideas to so many other - Derek Parfit lived a singular life in modern British (and American) philosophy Academia.  David Edmonds narrates this life in a  compelling fashion and readable style. 

Edmonds actual authorial voice as in most biographies is mostly absent but still you can sense in remarks, phrasing and quoting that Edmonds - like Parfit - also loves philosophy and believes that philosophy matters. 

Edmonds also draws out the love and admiration (even begrudging) that a multitude of others feel for Parfit. Parfit comes across as so genuinely committed that again he might be viewed as an implausible fictional character. Critics may argue there is limited balance. Parfit had detractors. Those detractors receive a little air time but not much. Similarly, there are whole categories of person who judge academic philosophy to be at best irrelevant (although they struggle to deny the influence of John Rawls or Amartya Sen, two characters that appear in this book) and at times harmful. 

On notions that struck me…  it’s notable and noticed by anyone who looks - how much Derek Parfit commented on and gave time to other philosophers and thinkers - I think of the mathematician Paul Erdos 

Erdos enables so many other mathematicians.  It seems to me that Parfit enabled so many others. 

This range was also wide and diverse.  Of thinkers I have noted Parfit influence goes from Amia Srinivasan to Amaryta Sen; Tyler Cowen to Larry Temkin to Thomas Scanlon to John Rawls (arguably)  a whole practical philosophy movement, the effective altruism movement. 

In thinking about Parfit’s legacy, this layer of “enablement” seems to me be very worthy and valuable. I hope that I can enable even 1% of what Parfit enabled in my domains

There are aspects to this story I observe but I don’t really know what to make of or I’m pondering:

• The role of All Souls and institutions, in general

• Autism. The implications of an autistic cognitive profile. 

• Emotions. Beauty (what did Parfit make of the sublime, and beauty. A seeming lack of jealousy.  

• Was Parfit mostly happy ? Did that matter at all ? 

• Would Parfit also been one of his generations best economists or historians ? What do I make of the broad interests and start and this steadily narrowing down. (Does this intersect with an autistic thinking profile, face-blindness; mimicking)

• Young talent, extraordinary talent, elite talent and what we might  lose in focus 

• Long termism 

• The role of your friends / colleagues / conversations (the Amryta Sen panels (with Cohen, Dworkin, Parfit) seem to me now as foundational in thinking about eg Sen’s capabilities approach to inequality, or, filling your potential - what did David Edmonds make of these panels ? 

• Was his greatest contribution as an enabler ? Why was his second book so awry (it seems according to consensus, vs his first, this is a Tyler Cowen question as well)

• Why the fear of symbols and maths?

• (And someone should have given him melatonin, tho maybe he tried it)

On: The role of All Souls College and institutions, in general

All Souls enabled Parfit to mostly not teach - or at least not teach or engage with anything he did not want to. I sense the institution allowed Parfit to become “more Parfit”. There was some pressure to publish (and we may not have seen his books otherwise due to this search for perfection), but was this solely a good thing to allow Parfit to hide from the world, and be so wrapped up in the college? Did Parfit nudge the college into the wider world?

What role should our institutions play in nurturing unusual or extreme talent ? Is there something to think about with an autistic profile?

On Autism

I will refer readers to Joanne Limburg’s Letters to my Weird Sisters on thinking about this. One can not medical diagnose an autistic profile from afar. But, it seems to me that Derek’s profile would fit an autistic thinker. In the small glimpses of his father in the book this might be the case too. There is possibly a glimpse in a sister as well. Many autists can learn the “rules” of a more typical society, some are astounding actors because of this (for instance, Daryl Hannah). There is even a solid anecdote for one form of this from Larry Temkin teaching Derek Parfit the rule about asking a friend about their spouse at the start of a conversation.

I’m unsure if this entirely matters.  (What matters! Is a theme of Parfit’s life) but I think it’s worth pondering about the way society asks us to conform or not, and to the extent we are allowed to push back against this conformity and what our friends, family and institutions allow us to do.

One story towards the end of Parfit’s life was him crying about Bach leaving unfinished work. It seems Parfit did feel certain matters strongly - more strongly than most people. Parfit’s atypical profile, in an atypical institution, in a small academic world (academic moral philosophy) with atypical  behaviour (at time you can see this as definitely uncaring to many and at other times kind and generous to an extreme degree)

He seemed to be unable to recall faces well and had an atypical relationship with images (cf. his photography) and so from his life, you can see a link to his philosophy his thinking on future person, his thinking on what matters…

In least in this telling, his kindness, his authentic determination - the elliptical re-telling of Parfit refrains  (Did you know that Bernard Williams doesn’t believe in objective moral truths) - the net side falls in Parfits favour.

Romantically, a seeming lack of jealousy.  

This is tangential, but I note a section of the Effective Altruism and Rationalist community that are also poly communities. But his relationships do seem quirkier than average.

Would Parfit also been one of his generation's best economists or historians ?

At my school, I knew one or two people who would be close to what Parfit was like at Eton. I do need to admit that my school is one of the few to think of itself as better than Eton (although Eton thinks likewise), and I was like Parfit, a scholar at my school.

I think of R.E. one of the only people to be able to score more highly than me in maths, and whose mathematical thinking I could clearly see outshone mine. His Latin also outshone mine (though I had the edge in chemistry…. Rivalries LOL).  He died in a car accident when I was still at school. And to some degree that death of someone so talented (and I had two more deaths like that before I was 19) has echoed in me not wasting too much time. I see this slightly later in Parfit when he lost his friend Gareth Evans in his 30s.

Parfit picked up an aversion to maths symbols somewhere late of just after school. I wonder if this was connected to his atypically visualisation and face blindness because he follows word logic well, but not symbol logic. But, if he didn’t pick this - would he created something great in economics ? He seemed to be at the level of Amartya Sen in the 1970s.

His early studies were in history and his poetry was - like most things he did as a teenager - extremely good for a teenager. He certainly could have been thought of as potentially a great historian. 

I wonder what we might have lost to his narrowing of focus. Sure, an autistic profile may drive one in that direction, but you can lean against that.

The role of your friends / colleagues / conversations 

Intellectual stars do seem to orbit around another. This is perhaps unsurprising. In particular that Parfit helped so many, he would come into orbit with many thinkers. But the role these debates have and the transmission of ideas I find intriguing.

I’ve even touched a little of this myself. One of the best conversation I’ve had in recent years has been with Larry Temkin (a student and close friend of Derek Parfit), and even in this one conversation I can now hear echoes of a compounding of Parfit discussions over time.

It seems to me who you decide to engage with over time is under rated even though everyone knows its importance.

I’m going to finish up these notes now. You can see a world vision through the story of Derek Parfit. Edmonds tells Parfit’s story that allows you to glimpse a world of academic philosophy, of All Souls, of a likely autistic thinker given to extreme kindness along with extreme behaviours. The conditions for producing a story like Parfit’s are rare and seem even rarer now, and I found it engaging to think upon.

I never met Derek Parfit, but perhaps he would take some pleasure in that I can think of the person of Derek Parfit now and this ghost of Derek persuades me to think on what matters.

Here is my conversation with Larry Temkin.

Here is Derek Parfit giving an address in Oxford.