Introduction
Simon Critchley (born 27 February 1960) is an English philosopher. He writes about the history of philosophy, political theory, religion, ethics, aesthetics, literature and theatre. He studied philosophy and has held visiting professorship at numerous universities. He has authored many books, and his work has been acknowledged. He argues that religious disappointment raises the question of meaning and has to, as he sees it, deal with the problem of nihilism; political disappointment provokes the question of justice and raises the need for a coherent ethics.
Early life and education
Critchley was born on 27 February 1960 in Hertfordshire, England. He studied philosophy and received a BA degree from the University of Essex in 1985 and a PhD in 1988. He obtained his M.Phil. at the University of Nice in 1987. Critchley was appointed a lecturer in philosophy at Essex in 1989, becoming reader in philosophy in 1995, and professor in 1999. Since 2004 Critchley has been professor of philosophy at the New School for Social Research. He held the chair in philosophy at The New School from 2008–2011 and became the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy in 2011.
He has held visiting professorships at numerous universities, including Sydney (2000), Notre Dame (2002), Cardozo Law School (2005) and at the University of Oslo (2006). In 2009 he was appointed a part-time professor of philosophy at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, where he runs a summer school and teaches in philosophy and liberal arts. Critchley is also a professor of philosophy at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.
Selected works
Critchley’s early work includes The Ethics of Deconstruction: Derrida and Levinas (Blackwell, 1992) and Very Little... Almost Nothing (Routledge, 1997), which focuses on the relation between philosophy and literature and the problem of nihilism. A collection of essays released in 1999, Ethics-Politics-Subjectivity (Verso, 1999), brings together Critchley's debate with Richard Rorty, as well as a series of essays on Derrida, Levinas, Jacques Lacan, and Jean-Luc Nancy.
His book Infinitely Demanding was the topic of a special issue of the journal Critical Horizons (August 2009).
Other work
The Stone is an opinion series in The New York Times, moderated by Critchley, that features the writings of contemporary philosophers on issues that include art, war, ethics, gender and popular culture.
In an essay series for the British newspaper The Guardian, Critchley explores Martin Heidegger's magnum opus, Being and Time.