[2] He attended St Paul's School before reading philosophy at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he obtained a first-class degree.
In his Sameness and Substance (Oxford, 1980), he proposed conceptualist realism, a position according to which our conceptual framework maps reality.
[6] According to philosopher Harold Noonan: The most influential part of Wiggins's work has been in metaphysics, where he has developed a fundamentally Aristotelian conception of substance, enriched by insights drawn from Putnam (1975) and Kripke (1980).
His works also contain influential discussions of the problem of personal identity, which Wiggins elucidates via a conception that he calls the "Animal Attribute View.
[8] Wiggins' distinguished pupils include: John McDowell, Derek Parfit, Jonathan Westphal, Timothy Williamson, James Anthony Harris, and Cheryl Misak.