Obituary: Professor Nicholas Davey

It is with deep regret to inform the University community of the death of Professor Nicholas Davey, former head of Philosophy and Dean of the School of Humanities. 

Nicholas died peacefully on Sunday 2 August. Husband to Barbara and father to Felix and Cecily, he spent his final days surrounded by the love of family and friends.

Nicholas trained at the Universities of York, Sussex and Tuebingen. He then lectured at City University, London, Manchester University, and the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. He started at Dundee in 1996, and, latterly, served as a REF panel member for Philosophy.  

Nicholas was a world-renowned specialist in hermeneutics, aesthetics, and the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, authoring many articles, including, with Cynthia Nielsen, the Stanford Encyclopaedia article on Gadamer’s Aesthetics. At the heart of Nicholas’s work, we find a trilogy of interconnected books: Unquiet Understanding (2006), Unfinished Worlds (2013), and Negative Hermeneutics and the Question of Practice (2023). 

Nicholas’s contribution to the Anglophone reception of German philosophy was immense. This characteristic – fundamentally Humboltian - was expressed and given focus in Nicholas’s generous approach to philosophy, which always sought to cross boundaries between analytic and continental, between the humanities and the arts, and between the University and its community. As testament to this outlook, Nicholas was founder of the University of Dundee’s Arts and Humanities Research Institute, and a founding member of the Scottish Centre for Continental Philosophy. Perhaps most outstandingly, Nicholas was the key driver in establishing the University of Dundee’s Art and Philosophy BA. Established in 2002, and Dundee’s longest-running interdisciplinary degree, the BA blends work in philosophy with consolidated studio practice at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design; it has produced many outstanding graduates, including internationally exhibiting artists, academics, and professionals working in fields including business, education, and technology.

As a fitting testament to Nicholas’s generous and ecumenical approach, colleagues from beyond the discipline have this week shared many moving reflections with us, commenting on his ‘support’, his ‘kindness’ and ‘openness’, his ‘jaunty wit’, and his ‘indefatigability’.

Nicholas is remembered lovingly by the Philosophy team at Dundee – as we reflected this recently, it was Nicholas who introduced the term ‘team’ into our self-description. He will be greatly missed.