Early Life
Derek Parfit was born in Chengdu, China, to Norman and Jessie Parfit (née Browne), both medical doctors who had moved to Western China to teach preventive medicine in missionary hospitals. The family returned to the United Kingdom about a year after Parfit was born, settling in Oxford. Parfit was sent to Eton College. He later read Modern History at the University of Oxford, graduating in 1964. In 1965-66 he was a Harkness Fellow at Columbia University and Harvard University. He abandoned historical studies for philosophy during the fellowship, returning to Oxford to become a fellow of All Souls College.
Read more about this topic: Derek Parfit
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“A two-year-old can be taught to curb his aggressions completely if the parents employ strong enough methods, but the achievement of such control at an early age may be bought at a price which few parents today would be willing to pay. The slow education for control demands much more parental time and patience at the beginning, but the child who learns control in this way will be the child who acquires healthy self-discipline later.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)