Martin Heidegger

Simon Critchley
Portrait, 2009
Born	(1960-02-27) 27 February 1960 (age 65) Letchworth, Hertfordshire,[1] England
Education
Education	University of Essex (BA) University of Nice (MPhil, PhD)
Philosophical work
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Continental philosophy
Institutions	New School for Social Research
Main interests	Political philosophy, ethics, aesthetics

Simon Critchley (born 27 February 1960) is an English philosopher and the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, U.S.

Challenging the ancient tradition that philosophy begins in wonder, Critchley argues that philosophy begins in disappointment.^[2] Two particular forms of disappointment inform Critchley's work: religious and political disappointment. While religious disappointment arises from a lack of faith and generates the problem of what is the meaning of life in the face of nihilism, political disappointment comes from the violent world we live in and raises the question of justice in a violently unjust world.^[3][4] In addition, to these two regions of research, Critchley's recent works have engaged in more experimental forms of writing on Shakespeare, David Bowie, suicide, Greek tragedy and association football.

Simon Critchley was born on 27 February 1960, in Letchworth, England, to a working-class family originally from Liverpool.^[5] He is a fan of Liverpool Football Club and has said that, it ‘may be the governing passion of my life. My only religious commitment is to Liverpool Football Club.’^[6][4] In grammar school, he studied history, sciences, languages (French and Russian) and English literature.^[7] During this time, he developed a lifelong interest in ancient history.^[8] After intentionally failing his school exams, Critchley worked a number of odd jobs, including in a pharmaceutical factory in which he sustained a severe injury to his left hand.^[4] During this time, he was a participant in the emerging punk scene in England, playing in numerous bands that all failed.^[9][10]

After studying for remedial 'O' and 'A' level exams at a community college while doing other odd jobs, Critchley went to university aged 22. He went to the University of Essex to study literature, but switched to philosophy.^[11] Amongst his teachers were Jay Bernstein, Robert Bernasconi, Ludmilla Jordanova, Onora O’Neill, Frank Cioffi, Mike Weston, Roger Moss, and Gabriel Pearson.^[12] He also briefly participated in the Communist Students' Society (where he first read Althusser, Foucault, and Derrida) as well as the Poetry Society.^[12] After graduating with First Class Honours and winning the Kanani Prize in Philosophy in 1985, Critchley went to the University of Nice, where he wrote his M.Phil. on overcoming metaphysics in Heidegger and Carnap with Dominique Janicaud. His other teachers were Clement Rosset and André Tosel.^[13] In 1987, Critchley returned to the University of Essex to write his PhD, completed in 1988, which was to become the basis for The Ethics of Deconstruction.^[13]

Critchley became a university fellow at University College Cardiff in 1988.^[14] In 1989, he returned to the University of Essex as lecturer and where he would become reader in 1995 and full professor in 1999. During this time he served first as deputy director (1990–96) and then as director (1997–2003) of the Centre for Theoretical Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences. From 1998 to 2004, he was Directeur de Programme at the Collège international de philosophie in Paris.^[15] He has held visiting appointments at Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität (1997–98, 2001), University of Nijmegen (1997), University of Sydney (2000), University of Notre Dame (2002), Cardozo Law School (2005), University of Oslo (2006) and University of Texas (2010). From 2009 to 2015, he ran a summer school at University of Tilburg. He is also a professor of philosophy at the European Graduate School. Since 2004, Critchley has been professor of philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, at which he became the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy in 2011.^[16] Since 2015, he has served on the board of the Onassis Foundation.^[10] In 2021, Critchley was named by Academic Influence as one of the top 25 most influential philosophers of today.^[10] He discusses his biography in a recent episode of Time Sensitive.^[4]

• (1992, 1999, 2014) The Ethics of Deconstruction: Derrida and Levinas, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0748689323
• (1997) Very Little... Almost Nothing: Death, Philosophy, Literature, Routledge, London & New York (2nd Edition, 2004). ISBN 978-0415340496
• (1999) Ethics-Politics-Subjectivity: Essays on Derrida, Levinas, and Contemporary French Thought, Verso, London (Reissued, 2007). ISBN 978-1844673513
• (2001) Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0192853592
• (2002) On Humour, Routledge, London ISBN 978-0415251211.
• (2005) On the Human Condition, with Dominique Janicaud & Eileen Brennan, Routledge, London. ISBN 978-0415327961
• (2005) Things Merely Are: Philosophy in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens, Routledge, London. ISBN 978-0415356312
• (2007) Infinitely Demanding. Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance, Verso, London & New York. ISBN 978-1781680179
• (2008) The Book of Dead Philosophers, Granta Books, London; Vintage, New York; Melbourne University Press, Melbourne. ISBN 978-0307390431
• (2008) On Heidegger’s ‘Being and Time’, with Reiner Schürmann, edited by Steven Levine, Routledge, London and New York. ISBN 978-0415775960
• (2008) Der Katechismus des Bürgers, Diaphanes Verlag, Berlin. ISBN 978-3037340325
• (2008) Democracy and Disappointment: On the Politics of Resistance (DVD) – Alain Badiou and Simon Critchley in Conversation, Slought Books, Philadelphia ASIN: B001AXTZIO
• (2010) How to Stop Living and Start Worrying, Polity Press ISBN 978-0745650395.
• (2011) Impossible Objects, Polity Press ISBN 978-0745653211.
• (2011) International Necronautical Society: Offizielle Mitteilungen
• (2012) The Mattering of Matter. Documents from the Archive of the International Necronautical Society, with Tom McCarthy, Sternberg Press, Berlin. ISBN 978-3943365344
• (2012) The Faith of the Faithless, Verso. ISBN 978-1781681688
• (2013) Stay, Illusion! The Hamlet Doctrine, Pantheon (North America); Verso (Europe). ISBN 978-0307950482
• (2014) Memory Theatre, Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK). ISBN 978-0992974718
• (2014) Bowie, OR Books. ISBN 978-1939293541
• (2015) Suicide, Thought Catalog/Kindle Single. ASIN: B00YB0UZDC
• (2015) Notes on Suicide, Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK). ISBN 978-1910695067
• (2015) The Problem With Levinas, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198738763
• (2015) ABC of Impossibility, Univocal. ISBN 978-1937561499
• (2017) What We Think About When We Think About Football, Profile Books. ISBN 978-1781259214
• (2019) Tragedy, the Greeks, and Us, Pantheon Press (US), Profile Books (UK). ISBN 978-1524747947
• (2020) Apply-degger (audio book)
• (2021) Bald: 35 Philosophical Short Cuts, Yale University Press ISBN 978-0300255966
• (2024) On Mysticism, Profile Books (UK). ISBN 978-1800816930

As (co)editor

• (1991) Re-Reading Levinas, ed. with Robert Bernasconi, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. ISBN 978-0253206244
• (1996) Deconstructive Subjectivities, ed. with Peter Dews, State University of New York Press, Ithaca, NY. ISBN 978-0791427248
• (1996) Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings, ed. with Adriaan T. Peperzak and Robert Bernasconi, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. ISBN 978-0253210791
• (1998) A Companion to Continental Philosophy, ed. with William R. Schroeder, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford. ISBN 978-0631190134
• (2002) The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, ed. with Robert Bernasconi, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521665650
• (2004) Laclau: A Critical Reader, ed. with Oliver Marchart, Routledge, London. ISBN 978-0415238441
• (2014) The Anarchist Turn, eds. Jacob Blumenfeld and Chiara Bottici, Pluto Books. ISBN 978-0745333427
• (2017) The Stone Reader: Modern Philosophy in 133 Arguments, ed. with Peter Catapano, W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 978-1631490712
• (2017) Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments, ed. with Peter Catapano, W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 978-1631492983
• (2022) Question Everything: A Stone Reader, ed. with Peter Catapano, W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 978-1324091837

• simon-critchley.com – Website with interviews, reviews, bibliography of work, etc.
• "Simon Critchley | The New School for Social Research". www.newschool.edu.
• "Violent Thoughts About Slavoj Zizek". nakedpunch.com. Archived from the original on 20 August 2016. Retrieved 10 April 2015.