{{Short description|British philosopher (born 1952)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}} {{Infobox academic | name = | image = | caption = | birth_date = 22 April 1952 | birth_place = | death_date = | death_place = | spouse = | awards = | education = Queens' College, Cambridge<br>University of Essex | alma_mater = University of Southampton (PhD) | thesis_title = Meaning, Force and Truth in Post-Structuralism: A Critical Presentation of Recent French Philosophies | thesis_url = https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/460510/ | thesis_year = 1984 | school_tradition = German Idealism | doctoral_advisor = Anthony Manser | academic_advisors = Perry Anderson, Peter Osborne, Jonathan Rée | era = Contemporary philosophy | work_institutions = Middlesex University<br>Anglia Ruskin University<br>University of Essex | doctoral_students = | main_interests = | notable_ideas = | website = https://web.archive.org/web/20250909155606/https://www.essex.ac.uk/people/DEWSP24209/Peter-Dews | region = Western philosophy }}
'''Peter Kenneth Dews''' (born 22 April 1952) is a British philosopher specialising in critical theory and continental philosophy, and an emeritus professor at the University of Essex.<ref name="UE">{{Cite web |title=Peter Dews |url=https://www.essex.ac.uk/people/DEWSP24209/Peter-Dews |website=University of Essex |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250909155606/https://www.essex.ac.uk/people/DEWSP24209/Peter-Dews |archive-date=9 September 2025 |url-status=dead |language=en}}</ref>
== Life and works == His first degree was in English from Queens' College, Cambridge, followed by a master's in sociology of literature from the University of Essex.<ref name="UE" /> He has a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Southampton.<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Dews |first=Peter |title=Meaning, force and truth in post-structuralism: a critical presentation of recent French philosophies |date=1984 |degree=PhD |publisher=University of Southampton |url=https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/460510/ |language=en}}</ref>
He taught philosophy at Middlesex University, and European philosophy and literature at Anglia Ruskin University, before joining the academic staff of the University of Essex. He was a Humboldt Fellow at the University of Tübingen.<ref name="UE" />
Dews made his name with the ''Logics of Disintegration'', on the limitations of post-structuralism.<ref name="BeaumontHemingway2007">{{cite book |last1=Beaumont |first1=Matthew |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1Rc9sVG7tr0C&pg=PA49 |title=As Radical as Reality Itself: Essays on Marxism and Art for the 21st Century |last2=Hemingway |first2=Andrew |last3=Leslie |first3=Esther |publisher=Peter Lang |year=2007 |isbn=978-3-03910-938-8 |page=49 |accessdate=27 March 2011}}</ref> Dews's 2023 book on ''Schelling's Late Philosophy'' was the subject of a book symposium by ''Review for the Society of German Idealism and Romanticism'', in which it received reviews from James Kreines, Philipp Schwab and Marcela García Romero.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Volume 7 (2024) |url=https://www.sgirreview.com/publications-3 |access-date=2025-07-13 |website=SGIR Review |language=en-US}}</ref>
He was dubbed "the UK's most sensitive Habermas-watcher" by journalist Pat Kane in 1993.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kane |first=Pat |title=Letters |journal=London Review of Books |volume=15 |issue=11 |date=10 June 1993 |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n09/peter-dews/agreeing-what-s-right}}</ref>
=== Publications ===
==== Books ==== *{{Cite book |last= |first= |url=http://archive.org/details/logicsofdisinteg0000dews |title=Logics of Disintegration: Post-structuralist Thought and the Claims of Critical Theory |date=1987 |location=London |publisher=Verso |url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-86091-813-4 |language=en}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Taylor |first=Charles |date=1988-08-01 |title=Logics of Disintegration |url=https://newleftreview.org/issues/i170/articles/charles-taylor-logics-of-disintegration |journal=New Left Review |issue=I/170 |pages=110–116}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hindess |first=Barry |date=1991-05-01 |title=Reviews : Peter Dews, Logics of Disintegration: Post-Structuralist Thought and the Claims of Critical Theory (Verso, 1987) |url=https://doi.org/10.1177/072551369102900111 |journal=Thesis Eleven |language=EN |volume=29 |issue=1 |pages=119–123 |doi=10.1177/072551369102900111 |issn=0725-5136|url-access=subscription }}</ref> * {{Cite book |last= |first= |url=http://archive.org/details/limitsofdisencha0000dews |title=The Limits of Disenchantment: Essays on Contemporary European Philosophy |date=1995 |location=London |publisher=Verso |url-access=registration |isbn=978-1-85984-022-1}} * {{Cite book |last= |first= |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9780470691830 |title=The Idea of Evil |date=2008 |location=Oxford |publisher=Blackwell |isbn=978-1-4051-1704-3 |language=en |doi=10.1002/9780470691830}} * {{Cite book |last= |first= |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/44651 |title=Schelling's Late Philosophy in Confrontation with Hegel |date=2022 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-19-006912-4 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780190069124.001.0001}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bruff |first=Kyla |date=2025 |title=Schelling's Late Philosophy in Confrontation with Hegel |url=https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/schellings-late-philosophy-in-confrontation-with-hegel/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250130053217/https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/schellings-late-philosophy-in-confrontation-with-hegel/ |archive-date=30 January 2025 |access-date=2025-07-13 |website=Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews |language=en-US |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=":0" />
===== Edited volumes ===== * {{cite book |last=Habermas |first=Jürgen |author-link=Jürgen Habermas |title=Autonomy and Solidarity: Interviews |editor-last=Dews |editor-first=Peter |editor-mask=1 |location=London |publisher=Verso |date=1986 |isbn=0860911322}} (2nd edn. 1992, {{ISBN|0860913678}}) * {{Cite book |editor-last2=Critchley |editor-first2=Simon |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Deconstructive_Subjectivities/VWODMYAVMqUC?hl=en |title=Deconstructive Subjectivities |editor-last1=Dews |editor-first1=Peter |editor-mask1=1 |date=1996 |publisher=State University of New York Press |isbn=978-0-7914-2724-8 |language=en}} * {{cite book |editor-last=Dews |editor-first=Peter |editor-mask=1 |title=Habermas: A Critical Reader |location=Oxford |publisher=Blackwell |date=1999 |isbn=0631201343 |language=en}}
==== Selected articles and book chapters ==== * {{cite journal |last= |first= |date=1980 |title=The 'New Philosophers' and the End of Leftism |url=https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/the-new-philosophers-and-the-end-of-leftism |journal=Radical Philosophy |language=en-GB |volume=24 |pages=2–11 |issn=0300-211X}} * {{cite journal |title=Hegel in Analysis: Slavoj Zizek's Lacanian Dialectics |journal=Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain |volume=11 |issue=1-2 |date=1990 |pages=1–18 |doi=10.1017/S0263523200004687}} * {{cite journal |title=Foucault and the French Tradition of Historical Epistemology |journal=History of European Ideas |volume=14 |issue=3 |date=1992 |pages=347–363 |doi=10.1016/0191-6599(92)90213-V}} * {{cite book |last= |first= |author-mask=1 |chapter=Postmodernism: Pathologies of Modernity from Nietzsche to the Post-structuralists |title=The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought |editor-last1=Ball |editor-first1=Terence |editor-last2=Bellamy |editor-first2=Richard |editor-link2=Richard Bellamy (philosopher) |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=2006 |pages=343–367 |isbn=9780521691628 |doi=10.1017/CHOL9780521563543.018}} * {{cite book |chapter=Nature and Subjectivity: Fichte's Role in the Pippin/McDowell Debate in the Light of his Neo-Kantian Reception |title=Wissen, Freiheit, Geschichte. Die Philosophie Fichtes im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert |editor-last1=Stolzenberg |editor-first1=Jürgen |editor-last2=Rudolph |editor-first2=Oliver-Pierre |location=Amsterdam |publisher=Rodopi |date=2010 |pages=235–250 |isbn=978-90-420-2758-9 |doi=10.1163/9789042027596_012}} * {{cite book |chapter=The Nouvelle Philosophie and Foucault |title=Towards a Critique of Foucault: Foucault, Lacan and the Question of Ethics |editor-last=Gane |editor-first=Mike |location=London |publisher=Taylor & Francis |date=2010 |pages=61-105 |isbn=9780415562089}} * {{cite journal |title=Nietzsche for Losers? |journal=New Left Review |volume=86 |issue=2 |date=2014 |pages=209–230 |doi=10.64590/isy}} * {{cite journal |title=Dialectics and the Transcendence of Dialectics: Adorno's Relation to Schelling |journal=British Journal for the History of Philosophy |volume=22 |issue=6 |date=2014 |pages=1180–1207 |doi=10.1080/09608788.2014.992857}} * {{cite book |chapter=The Configuration of the Ethical Demand in Løgstrup and Levinas |title=What is Ethically Demanded? K. E. Løgstrup's Philosophy of Moral Life |editor-last1=Fink |editor-first1=Hans |editor-last2=Stern |editor-first2=Robert |editor-link2=Robert Stern (philosopher) |location=Notre Dame, IN |publisher=Notre Dame University Press |date=2017 |pages=102–129 |isbn=978-0-268-10185-5 |doi=10.2307/j.ctvpj755r.9}} * {{cite book |chapter=Schelling and the Frankfurt School |title=The Routledge Companion to the Frankfurt School |editor-last1=Gordon |editor-first1=Peter E. |editor-link1=Peter Gordon (historian) |editor-last2=Hammer |editor-first2=Espen |editor-link2=Espen Hammer |editor-last3=Honneth |editor-first3=Axel |editor-link3=Axel Honneth |location=London |publisher=Routledge |date=2018 |pages=394–409 |isbn=9781138333246}}
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links == * {{Google Scholar ID|id=XwOKnnYAAAAJ}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dews, Peter}} Category:1952 births Category:20th-century British philosophers Category:21st-century British philosophers Category:Academics of Anglia Ruskin University Category:Academics of Middlesex University Category:Academics of the University of Essex Category:Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge Category:Alumni of the University of Southampton Category:Critical theorists Category:Living people
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