My father, Nicholas Davey, a philosopher and academic, who has died aged 75, spent his life searching for understanding, and seeking to cross boundaries.
Early in his career, he travelled on several occasions to the former East Germany, to study at the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar in the 1970s and 80s. He later helped bring German philosophy to English readers, notably through his introduction to a popular translation of Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra published in 1997.
Nicholas also sought ways to bridge the arts and the humanities. At the University of Dundee, he was instrumental in establishing a joint art and philosophy degree, with students combining philosophical studies and artistic studio practice.
Fascinated by different cultures, Nicholas travelled widely. In the early 80s he trekked around India on buses and trains, often clinging to the roof. Several years later, our family spent a summer making a return trip from Cardiff to Prague, which was still behind the iron curtain at the time, by rail. Not a regular summer holiday, but definitely a lot of fun.
Nicholas was born in north London, to Robert, a customs clerk, and Mary (nee Damer), a housewife, and went to Friern Barnet grammar school. His first experience of teaching came during a gap year in Belize with VSO. He discovered his love of philosophy as an undergraduate at the University of York, before gaining a master’s and a doctorate in the history of ideas at the University of Sussex.
At York he also found love, with Barbara Smith, a student of English. His early career took them to London, Manchester and Cardiff. In 1996, by now married with two children, they moved to Scotland, as Nicholas joined the University of Dundee as senior lecturer in philosophy. He stayed there for more than 20 years, becoming professor and head of philosophy, and dean of humanities.
At the heart of Nicholas’s work sat three books, exploring how our shared world is understood: Unquiet Understanding (2006), Unfinished Worlds (2013) and Negative Hermeneutics and the Question of Practice (2023). Writing was a labour of love but he took most pleasure in bringing ideas off the page and into discussion, with students, colleagues and connections across the world.
Conversations around the dinner table at home were just as lively, as he shared his varied passions for everything from Wagner to the sitcom Frasier.
Nicholas marked his retirement in 2017 by travelling to Sils Maria in the Swiss Alps, where Nietzsche spent his summers. His final journey overseas was to Dubai, to meet his newborn granddaughter.
He is survived by Barbara, their children, Cecily and me, and granddaughter, Lily, and by his brothers, Jonathan and Piers. His younger daughter, Angelica, died as a baby.
