Derek Parfit
E317624
Derek Parfit was a British philosopher renowned for his groundbreaking work on personal identity, rationality, and ethics, especially in his influential book "Reasons and Persons."
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Derek Parfit canonical | 11 |
| Parfit | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3011577 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Derek Parfit Context triple: [Henry Sidgwick, influenced, Derek Parfit]
-
A.
David Lewis
David Lewis was an American philosopher renowned for his influential work in metaphysics, especially modal realism and possible worlds semantics, as well as significant contributions to philosophy of language and mind.
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B.
Peter van Inwagen
Peter van Inwagen is a prominent contemporary American analytic philosopher best known for his work on metaphysics, free will, and the philosophy of religion.
-
C.
Crispin Wright
Crispin Wright is a prominent contemporary British philosopher best known for his influential work in the philosophy of language, logic, and mathematics, particularly on realism, anti-realism, and the nature of truth.
-
D.
John McDowell
John McDowell is a prominent contemporary philosopher known for his work in philosophy of mind, language, and ethics, particularly his influential book "Mind and World."
-
E.
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel is an American philosopher known for his influential work in moral and political philosophy, philosophy of mind, and epistemology, including the famous essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?".
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Derek Parfit Target entity description: Derek Parfit was a British philosopher renowned for his groundbreaking work on personal identity, rationality, and ethics, especially in his influential book "Reasons and Persons."
-
A.
David Lewis
David Lewis was an American philosopher renowned for his influential work in metaphysics, especially modal realism and possible worlds semantics, as well as significant contributions to philosophy of language and mind.
-
B.
Peter van Inwagen
Peter van Inwagen is a prominent contemporary American analytic philosopher best known for his work on metaphysics, free will, and the philosophy of religion.
-
C.
Crispin Wright
Crispin Wright is a prominent contemporary British philosopher best known for his influential work in the philosophy of language, logic, and mathematics, particularly on realism, anti-realism, and the nature of truth.
-
D.
John McDowell
John McDowell is a prominent contemporary philosopher known for his work in philosophy of mind, language, and ethics, particularly his influential book "Mind and World."
-
E.
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel is an American philosopher known for his influential work in moral and political philosophy, philosophy of mind, and epistemology, including the famous essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?".
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (50)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
British philosopher
ⓘ
human ⓘ moral philosopher ⓘ philosopher ⓘ |
| almaMater | Balliol College, Oxford ⓘ |
| awardReceived |
Honorary fellowship of the British Academy
ⓘ
linked to:
Fellow of the British Academy
Rolf Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy ⓘ
linked to:
Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy
|
| countryOfBirth | China ⓘ |
| countryOfCitizenship | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| dateOfBirth | 1942-12-11 ⓘ |
| dateOfDeath | 2017-01-01 ⓘ |
| educatedAt | Eton College ⓘ |
| employer | All Souls College, Oxford ⓘ |
| familyName |
Parfit
ⓘ
linked to:
Derek Parfit
|
| fieldOfWork |
decision theory
ⓘ
ethics ⓘ metaethics ⓘ moral philosophy ⓘ normative ethics ⓘ philosophy of personal identity ⓘ political philosophy ⓘ population ethics ⓘ rational choice theory ⓘ |
| givenName | Derek ⓘ |
| influenced |
contemporary moral philosophy
ⓘ
contemporary population ethics ⓘ effective altruism movement ⓘ
linked to:
effective altruism
|
| influencedBy |
Derek Parfit’s reading of classical utilitarians
ⓘ
Henry Sidgwick ⓘ Immanuel Kant ⓘ |
| knownFor |
arguments about reasons and rationality
ⓘ
defence and critique of consequentialism ⓘ formulation of the repugnant conclusion in population ethics ⓘ reductionist view of personal identity ⓘ work on the non-identity problem ⓘ |
| languageOfWorkOrName | English ⓘ |
| mainInterest |
consequentialism
ⓘ
ethics ⓘ personal identity ⓘ rationality ⓘ |
| name | Derek Parfit ⓘ |
| notableWork |
On What Matters
ⓘ
Reasons and Persons ⓘ |
| philosophicalSchool | analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| placeOfBirth | Chengdu ⓘ |
| placeOfDeath |
London
ⓘ
linked to:
London, England
|
| positionHeld | Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford ⓘ |
| publicationDateOfWork |
On What Matters, 2011
ⓘ
Reasons and Persons, 1984 ⓘ
linked to:
Reasons and Persons
|
| workplace | University of Oxford ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Derek Parfit Description of subject: Derek Parfit was a British philosopher renowned for his groundbreaking work on personal identity, rationality, and ethics, especially in his influential book "Reasons and Persons."
Referenced by (12)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.