Robert Stern obituary
My colleague and friend Robert Stern, who has died aged 62 from brain cancer, spent 34 years at the University of Sheffield. He was one of the leading British philosophers of his generation, combining critical precision with generosity, and helped to overturn the well-established dichotomy between “analytic” and “continental” philosophy.
His interests included figures such as Kant, Kierkegaard, Murdoch, Levinas, Peirce and Luther. He provided original interpretations of complex and sometimes confusing philosophical arguments. Bob was best known for reintroducing neglected figures from the history of philosophy. Hegel was the first among these.
Before the 1980s, Hegel was regarded with scorn by some analytic philosophers, representing all that was wrong with what they disparagingly called continental philosophy. Through meticulous reconstruction of Hegel’s arguments, Bob recovered a Hegel who was not only intelligible but also remarkably interesting and credible. Neither dogmatist nor mystic, his Hegel offers a holistic metaphysics, which recognises both the achievements of reason and the crucial value of tradition and ordinary morality.
He also played a key role in reviving international interest in KE Løgstrup, who, although “world-famous in Denmark” (as Bob used to joke), had been largely ignored in English-speaking philosophy until he published his 2019 book The Radical Demand in Løgstrup’s Ethics.
Born in Norwich, Bob was the son of Jack, who ran a jewellery shop, and Isabel (nee Cohen). Bob went to Gresham’s school in Holt, Norfolk, and studied philosophy at St John’s College, Cambridge for his BA and PhD, before taking up a post in the philosophy department at Sheffield University in 1989, where he was my doctoral supervisor.
He was made a professor in 2000 and served as chair of the Philosophy Research Excellence Framework Panel, as president of the Aristotelian Society and the British Philosophical Association, and as editor of the European Journal of Philosophy and the Hegel Bulletin. He was also president of the British Society for the History of Philosophy and was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 2019.
Bob enthusiastically supported student initiatives (including Philosophy in the City, an outreach programme) and spearheaded the yearly Philosophy Rocks! concert (probably inspired by his love for Bob Dylan), during which philosophy students and staff play music together.
He met his wife, Crosby (nee Stevens), while they were students at Cambridge, and they married in 1988. They made their home in Sheffield, where he was a stalwart presence at the weekly Endcliffe parkrun.
He is survived by Crosby and their children, Adam and Lucy.
