John Cottingham spoke on “Why the history of philosophy matters”, on Friday 3 November 2017.

John Cottingham is a Visiting Professor in the Philosophy Department. He is the author of many books on the history of philosophy and on Descartes in particular, including Cartesian Reflections (Oxford University Press, 2008), Western Philosophy (Blackwell, 2007), Philosophy and the good life: reason and the passions in Greek, Cartesian and psychoanalytic ethics (Cambridge University Press, 1998), Descartes’s Philosophy of Mind (Orion, 1997), The Rationalists (Oxford University Press, 1988), and Descartes (Blackwell, 1986). He is also co-editor and translator of the three-volume Cambridge edition of The Philosophical Writings of Descartes.

The British Society for the History of Philosophy (BSHP), launched in 1984, is a registered charity, which exists to promote and foster all aspects of the study and teaching of the history of philosophy. It publishes the British Journal for the History of Philosophy, currently based at King’s College London and edited by Mike Beaney. The BSHP chair is Maria Rosa Antognazza.