Dorothy Margaret Doig Edgington FBA (née Milne, born 29 April 1941) is a philosopher active in

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

and

philosophical logic Understood in a narrow sense, philosophical logic is the area of logic that studies the application of logical methods to philosophical problems, often in the form of extended logical systems like modal logic. Some theorists conceive philosophical ...

. She is particularly known for her work on the logic of

conditionals Conditional (if then) may refer to: *Causal conditional, if X then Y, where X is a cause of Y *Conditional probability, the probability of an event A given that another event B has occurred *Conditional proof, in logic: a proof that asserts a co ...

and

vagueness In linguistics and philosophy, a vague predicate is one which gives rise to borderline cases. For example, the English adjective "tall" is vague since it is not clearly true or false for someone of middling height. By contrast, the word "prime" is ...

Life and education

Dorothy Edgington was born on 29 April 1941 to Edward Milne and his wife Rhoda née Blair. She attended St Leonards School before going to

St Hilda's College, Oxford St Hilda's College is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college is named after the Anglo-Saxon Saint, Hilda of Whitby and was founded in 1893 as a hall for women; it ...

to read PPE. She obtained her BA in 1964, followed in 1967 by a BPhil at

Nuffield College, Oxford Nuffield College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is a graduate college and specialises in the social sciences, particularly economics, politics and sociology. Nuffield is one of Oxford's newer co ...

Career

Most of Edgington's career was spent at

Birkbeck College Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public university, public research university, located in Bloomsbury, London, England, and a constituent college, member institution of the federal Universit ...

. Her first academic post in 1968, was as Lecturer in Philosophy at Birkbeck and she remained there until 1996. From 1996 until 2001 she was appointed Fellow of

University College, Oxford University College (in full The College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford, colloquially referred to as "Univ") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It has a claim to being the oldest college of the univer ...

. This was followed by a professorship at Birkbeck from 2001–03. She was then

Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy The Waynflete Professorships are four professorial fellowships at the University of Oxford endowed by Magdalen College, Oxford, Magdalen College and named in honour of the college founder William of Waynflete, who had a great interest in science. T ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

from 2003 until 2006. She is now Emeritus Professor, and Fellow of

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the s ...

and teaches at Birkbeck again part-time.

hosts a lecture series named after Edgington; in 2012, the lectures were given by

John McDowell John Henry McDowell, FBA (born 7 March 1942) is a South African philosopher, formerly a fellow of University College, Oxford, and now university professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Although he has written on metaphysics, epistemology, ...

, in 2014 they were given by

Rae Langton Rae Helen Langton, FBA (born 14 February 1961) is an Australian-British professor of philosophy. She is currently the Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. She has published widely on Immanuel Kant's philosophy, m ...

, and in 2016 the Edgington Lectures were given by

Kit Fine Kit Fine (born 26 March 1946) is a British philosopher, currently university professor and Silver Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics at New York University. Prior to joining the philosophy department of NYU in 1997, he taught at the Uni ...

. From 2004 to 2005 she was President of the

Mind Association The Mind Association is a philosophical society whose purpose is to promote the study of philosophy. The association publishes the journal '' Mind'' quarterly. It was established in 1900 on the death of Henry Sidgwick Henry Sidgwick (; 31 ...

2004–5 and she was President of the

Aristotelian Society The Aristotelian Society for the Systematic Study of Philosophy, more generally known as the Aristotelian Society, is a philosophical society in London. History Aristotelian Society was founded at a meeting on 19 April 1880, at 17 Bloomsbury Squar ...

for 2007–8. She is a Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...

Selected publications

* 'The Paradox of Knowability' (1985), ''Mind'' 94:557–568. Presents a resolution of Fitch's paradox based on

situation semantics In situation theory, situation semantics (pioneered by Jon Barwise and John Perry in the early 1980s) attempts to provide a solid theoretical foundation for reasoning about common-sense and real world situations, typically in the context of theor ...

. * 'On Conditionals' (1995), ''Mind'' 104:235–329. Defends an epistemic theory of conditionals against a truth-functional one, as part of the Mind's state of the art series. * 'Vagueness by Degrees'. In Rosanna Keefe & Peter Smith (eds.), ''Vagueness: A Reader''. MIT Press (1997) * 'Counterfactuals and the Benefit of Hindsight'. In Phil Dowe & Paul Noordhof (eds.), ''Cause and Chance: Causation in an Indeterministic World''. Routledge (2004) *
Conditionals
' (2006), ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''.

References

External links

Dorothy Edgington personal webpage, Birkbeck
{{DEFAULTSORT:Edgington, Dorothy 1941 births Living people 20th-century British philosophers 21st-century British philosophers Analytic philosophers British women philosophers Academics of Birkbeck, University of London Waynflete Professors of Metaphysical Philosophy Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford Fellows of the British Academy Presidents of the Aristotelian Society