About
I'm a Professor in Philosophy at the University of Southampton. My main work is in the history of philosophy, specialising in the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche. My predominant focus has been on the relationships between Nietzsche and Schopenhauer over issues concerning morality, suffering, the self, religion, and affirmation of life versus pessimism.
Most recently I have been researching aspects of classical Indian philosophy, in particular concerning ethics and the metaphysics of self (and Buddhist ‘no-self’), in order to investigate the philosophical significance of Schopenhauer’s and Nietzsche’s respective receptions of Indian philosophy.
I studied Philosophy, Classics, and German as an undergraduate. I have a BA and DPhil from the University of Oxford, and previously taught at Birkbeck, University of London, with a brief visiting lectureship at the University of Sydney.
Research
Research interests
- Schopenhauer
- Nietzsche
- Classical Indian Philosophy
Current research
My recent research has been focused on philosophical issues in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Topics I have published on include: responses to Schopenhauer in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra; the reception of Schopenhauer's pessimism; Schopenhauer's conception of the will; Nietzsche's attitudes to suffering; relations between Schopenhauer's ethics and Indian philosophy. I am engaged in a larger project of researching aspects of Classical Indian philosophy and how engagement with them can assist in examining questions of self, suffering, affirmation and negation that arise in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. I have also been active as editor and translator, as the general editor of the Cambridge edition of Schopenhauer's Works.