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.