Profile

Career

Research

Overview

Research interests

• Kant and German Idealism, especially Hegel
• Kierkegaard
• British Idealism
• American Pragmatism, especially Peirce

Current projects

The history of modern ethics from Kant onwards, and in particular issues surrounding moral realism, moral constructivism, autonomy, and accounts of obligation as these relate to the works of Kant, Hegel and Kierkegaard

Supervision

• Sean Cordell (Political virtue ethics)
• Dan Herbert (Peirce on Kant's transcendental deduction)
• Tom O'Shea (Autonomy and objectivity)
• Jon Scarlett (Hegel and civic republicanism)
• Joshua Forstenzer (Pragmatic theories of democracy)
• Katie Harrington (Transcendental idealism and transcendental arguments
• Taylor Mathews (Hegel’s metaphysics)

Publications

Selected publications

Books

• Hegelian Metaphysics, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2009)
• Hegel and the 'Phenomenology of Spirit', London: Routledge (2002)
• Transcendental Arguments and Scepticism: Answering the Question of Justification, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2000)
• Hegel, Kant and the Structure of the Object, London: Routledge (1990)

Papers

• 'Hegel's Idealism', in Frederick C. Beiser (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2008), pp. 135-73
• 'Kant's Response to Skepticism', in John Greco (ed) The Oxford Hanbook of Skepticism, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2008), pp. 265-86
• 'Individual Existence and the Philosophy of Difference', in Brian Leiter and Michael Rosen (eds) The Oxford Handbook to Continental Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2007), pp. 379-408
• 'Peirce, Hegel, and the Category of Firstness', International Yearbook of German Idealism, Vol. 5 (2007), pp. 276-308
• 'Peirce, Hegel, and the Category of Secondness', Inquiry, Vol. 50 (2007), pp. 123-155
• 'Freedom, Self-Legislation and Morality in Kant and Hegel: Constructivist vs Realist Accounts', in Espen Hammer (ed) German Idealism: Contemporary Perspectives, London: Routledge (2007), pp. 245-66
• 'Transcendental Arguments: A Plea for Modesty', Grazer Philosophische Studien, Vol. 74 (2007), pp. 143-161 [Reprinted in Philosophical Knowledge: Its Possibility and Scope, edited by Christian Beyer and Alex Burri (Rodolphi, 2007)]
• 'Hegel, British Idealism, and the Curious Case of the Concrete Universal', British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Vol. 15 (2007), pp. 115-53
• 'Metaphysical Dogmatism, Humean Scepticism, Kantian Criticism', Kantian Review, Vol. 11 (2006), pp. 102-116
• 'Hegel's Doppelsatz: A Neutral Reading', Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. XLIV (2006), pp. 235-66
• 'Nineteenth Century Philosophy', Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online; reprinted in Edward Craig (ed) The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, London: Routledge (2005), pp. 742-7
• 'Peirce on Hegel: Nominalist or Realist?', Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, Vol. XLI (2005), pp. 65-99
• 'Coherence as a Test for Truth', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LXIX (2004), pp. 296-326
• 'Does "Ought" Imply "Can"? And Did Kant Think It Does?', Utilitas, Vol. 16 (2004), pp. 42-61
• 'On Strawson's Naturalistic Turn', in H. J. Glock (ed) Strawson and Kant, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2003), pp. 219-34
• 'On Kant's Response to Hume: The Second Analogy as Transcendental Argument', in Robert Stern (ed) Transcendental Arguments: Problems and Prospects, Oxford: Oxford University Press (1999), pp. 47-66
• 'Going Beyond the Kantian Philosophy: On McDowell's Hegelian Critique of Kant', European Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 7 (1999), pp. 247–69
• [with Nicholas Walker] 'Hegelianism', Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, London: Routledge (1998), vol. 4, pp. 280–302.
• 'Hegel, Scepticism and Transcendental Arguments', in R-P.Horstmann and H.Fulda (eds) Skeptizismus und spekulatives Denken in der Philosophie Hegels, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta (1996), pp. 206-225
• 'Søren Kierkegaard', in Jenny Teichmann and Graham White (eds) An Introduction to European Philosophy, Basingstoke: Macmillan (1995), pp. 18-37
• 'British Hegelianism: A Non-Metaphysical View?', European Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 2 (1994), pp.293-321
• 'MacIntyre and Historicism', in John Horton and Susan Mendus (eds) After MacIntyre, Cambridge: Polity Press (1994), pp. 146-60
• 'Did Hegel Hold an Identity Theory of Truth?', Mind, Vol. 102 (1993), pp.645-7
• 'James and Bradley on Understanding', Philosophy, Vol. 68 (1993), pp.193-209
• Introduction, F.W.J.Schelling, Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, translated by E.E.Harris and P.Heath, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1988), pp.ix-xxiii

External activities

Editorial duties

• Editor of the European Journal of Philosophy
• Editor of G. W. F. Hegel: Critical Assessments, Routledge, 1993
• Subject-editor covering C19th for the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Editor of the Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain (1991-97)
• Member of editorial board of Kant Yearbook