Education
- Beethoven-Gymnasium, Bonn: Classics
- University of Bonn: Gottfried Martin: Leibniz, Kant; Oskar Becker: symbolic logic, later Heidegger; Benno v. Wiese: Schiller
- University of Munich: Ludwig Britzlmayr: Frege; Wolfgang Stegmüller: advanced logic, philosophy of science, Carnap, Quine
- Balliol College, Oxford University, Oxford: Michael Dummett: set theory, philosophy of logic, Frege, Brouwer, Wittgenstein; Gilbert Ryle: Russell, Wittgenstein; R. M. Hare: ethics
Degree
- B.Phil., Oxford Dissertation: The Logic of “Good”
Employment
- Assistant Lecturer and Lecturer in Philosophy, University College London, 1963-1970
- Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley, 1970-73
- Associate Professor, UC Berkeley, 1973-1980
- Professor, UC Berkeley 1980-present
- William and Trudy Ausfahl Professor of Philosophy, UC Berkeley, 2010- 2020
Other appointments
- Visiting Lecturer, UC Berkeley, 1967
- Member of the Group in Logic and Methodology of Science, UC Berkeley, 1970-present
- Visiting Gustav Bergmann and Ida Beam Professor, University of Iowa, Fall 1990
- Visiting Catherine Chism Gould Professor of the Humanities, University of Puget Sound, Spring 1994
- Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of California at Riverside, 1996
- Visiting Ernst-Cassirer-Professor, University of Hamburg, Germany, Spring 1998
- Visiting Professor, University of Freiburg, Germany, Summer 2002
- Visiting Professor, University of Frankfurt, Germany, Summer 2004
- Visiting Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Spring 2010
Administrative positions
- Chairman of Philosophy Department, 1981-84
- Chairman of Humanities Area Council, 1982-84
- Outside Chairman of German Department, June 1988-February 1989
- Chairman of the Group in Logic and Methodology, 1989-90, 1994-96
Fellowships
- Scholarship of the Deutsche Studienstiftung, 1957-63
- Townsend Senior Fellowship, 1990-91
- Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1991-92
- Humanities Research Fellowship, UC Berkeley, 1998-99
- Humanities Research Fellowship 2004-05
Some recent lecture courses
- Introduction to Ethics (Philosophy 2)
- Political Philosophy (Philosophy 115 and 116)
- Michel Foucault (Philosophy 179)
Some recent graduate seminars
- Fall 2016: Hegel, The Philosophy of Right
- Spring 2019: Foucault, The Order of Things (with Paolo Mancosu)
- Spring 202: The Idea of the Common Good in Western and Chinese Thinking (with Michael Nylan)
- Spring 2022: Wittgenstein, Tractatus