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Biography

I came to Aberdeen as Regius Professor of Logic in June 2020 (currently half-time), a post that I hold jointly with a Visiting Professorship at Peking University (2026–), where I teach every autumn. I am also Honorary Professor of History of Analytic Philosophy at the Humboldt University in Berlin, having held a half-time position there from 2016 to 2024. Before moving to Aberdeen, I was Professor of Philosophy at King's College London (2016–20, part-time), and before that Reader (2005–09) and then Professor of Philosophy (2009–15) at the University of York. I have also worked at the Open University (2000–05), University of Manchester (1998–99), University of Leeds (1992–98), Birkbeck College London (1990–92) and University of Sheffield (1986–88).

In Germany I have held Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowships at the University of Jena (2006–07) and University of Erlangen-Nürnberg (1999–2000).

I have been visiting China regularly since 2011, when I was Visiting Professor at Peking University (Winter Semester). I have taught short courses at Beijing Normal University (2013, 2014), Renmin University (2017), and Capital Normal University, Beijing (2018), and was Visiting Chair Professor at Tsinghua University from 2020 to 2025. Since 2016 I have been Chair of the British Committee of the Summer School in China Programme (established 1988), which is organized in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of the Social Sciences and (from 2026) with Peking University.

I originally studied PPE as an undergraduate (1978–81) at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, where I did my B.Phil. (1985) and D.Phil. (1990) in Philosophy. I also have an MA from the University of Keele (1983).

External Memberships

I was Editor of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy (BJHP) from 2011 to 2020, and remain on the Editorial Board as an Associate Editor. I served on the Management Committee of the British Society for the History of Philosophy (BSHP) from 1995 to 2020. I am also on the Editorial Board of Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies and on the Advisory Boards of the Journal of Chinese Philosophy and the Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy.

I am General Editor of a book series on the history of analytic philosophy published by Palgrave Macmillan (40+ volumes) and Co-Editor (with Peter Adamson, Mogens Laerke and Karyn Lai) of a BSHP book series entitled 'New Texts in the History of Philosophy' published by Oxford University Press (15+ volumes).

I was President of the (SSHAP) from 2021 to 2023.

I was a member of the AHRC Peer Review College from 2010 to 2022, and am a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Research Overview

• History of analytic philosophy, especially the work of Frege, Wittgenstein, Stebbing, Collingwood
• Chinese philosophy, focusing on ancient Chinese philosophy of language and logic and Chinese analytic philosophy
• Philosophical methodology, with particular reference to analysis and creativity throughout the history of philosophy
• Historiography of philosophy, especially analytic historiography, Chinese historiography 
• Comparative philosophy, focusing on Chinese–Western comparisons and the philosophy of comparison
• Philosophical translation, especially German-English and English-Chinese

I welcome applications from students wishing to work in any of these areas.

Current Research

I am currently preparing a new translation into English of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to appear next year (2021) in the Oxford World's Classics (published by Oxford University Press).

Collaborations

Collaboration with Prof. Karyn Lai (UNSW) about ancient Chinese epistemology.

Teaching Responsibilities

Ancient Chinese Philosophy; Creativity

Courses that I have taught over the last decade include introductory courses on Chinese Philosophy and History of Analytic Philosophy, and higher-level courses on Analogy and Metaphor in Philosophy, Ancient Chinese Philosophy of Language and Logic, Arguments in Ancient Chinese Philosophy, Creativity, Foundations of Mathematics, Frege, Paradoxes, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Museums, Philosophical Historiography, Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Anthropology, Wittgenstein's On Certainty, and Wittgenstein's Tractatus.