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David Wiggins
Cioffini, Angela
2025
Abstract
David Wiggins is a contemporary British analytical philosopher whose reflections have profoundly influenced the current debate around the themes of the essence and diachronic identity of worldly objects. This paper aims to present his main insights regarding these issues. In the first part the salient aspects of his sortalism, or the thesis according to which everything that exists belongs to a kind, are analyzed, while in the second the demonstration of the absoluteness of the identity relation and two important distinctions are presented: that between substantial sortals and phase sortals and that between the "is" of identity and “is” of the constitution. The last part is, however, devoted to the analysis of Wiggins’ thoughts on the themes of the essence and identity of human persons.
David Wiggins è un filosofo analitico britannico contemporaneo la cui riflessione ha profondamente influenzato il dibattito attuale attorno ai temi dell’essenza e dell’identità diacronica degli oggetti mondani. Questo scritto si propone di presentare quelle che sono le sue principali intuizioni riguardo tali tematiche. Nella prima parte vengono analizzati gli aspetti salienti del suo sortalismo (la tesi secondo cui ogni cosa che esiste appartiene a un genere), mentre nella seconda vengono presentati la dimostrazione dell’assolutezza della relazione d’identità e due importanti distinzioni: quella fra sortali sostanziali e sortali di fase e quella fra “è” dell’identità e “è” della costituzione. L’ultima parte è, invece, dedicata all’analisi del pensiero di questo autore sui temi dell’essenza e dell’identità delle persone umane.
David Wiggins is a contemporary British analytical philosopher whose reflections have profoundly influenced the current debate around the themes of the essence and diachronic identity of worldly objects. This paper aims to present his main insights regarding these issues. In the first part the salient aspects of his sortalism, or the thesis according to which everything that exists belongs to a kind, are analyzed, while in the second the demonstration of the absoluteness of the identity relation and two important distinctions are presented: that between substantial sortals and phase sortals and that between the "is" of identity and “is” of the constitution. The last part is, however, devoted to the analysis of Wiggins’ thoughts on the themes of the essence and identity of human persons.
Journal
Publisher
EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste
Source
Angela Cioffini, "David Wiggins", in "APhEx 31", 2025, pp. 1-21
Languages
it
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
File(s)