Bob was well known for his work in the history of philosophy: nineteenth century Kantian and post-Kantian German philosophy, especially Hegel. More recently Bob was instrumental in bringing the little known Danish philosopher K. E. Løgstrup to prominence.
Since joining Sheffield in 1989, Bob published books on Hegel, Kant and the Structure of the Object (1990), Transcendental Arguments and Scepticism: Answering the Question of Justification (2000), The Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hegel and the Phenomenology of Spirit (2002/2013), Hegelian Metaphysics (2009), Understanding Moral Obligation: Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard. (2011) Kantian Ethics: Value, Agency, and Obligation (2015), The Radical Demand in Løgstrup's Ethics (2019), alongside many other collected volumes and articles. Bob’s work spanned epistemology, metaphysics, ethics and political philosophy.
Bob served as head of department, editor of the European Journal of Philosophy, editor of the Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain; President of the Hegel Society of Great Britain and President of the British Philosophical association; Bob was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 2019, was President of the Aristotelian Society and Chair of the Philosophy section of the last REF panel.
In that time, alongside this prestigious work, Bob has been cherished in the department as teacher, supervisor, mentor, colleague and friend. He will be enormously missed.
In this recent interview about his life, Bob said the following:
“Most days, doing [philosophy] makes me feel happily absorbed and engaged, though of course it can also be challenging, frustrating, puzzling, and demanding. As well as expanding my cultural knowledge and experience and teaching me much about the past as well as about present ideas, my enjoyment of philosophy also comes from its creative aspects, in terms of thinking, and also writing, arguing, structuring, imagining and so on. Sadly, I am unable to perform music, be a creative writer or artist, or conceive of some new scientific theory – but at its best moments, I think doing philosophy can come close to the various satisfactions to be found in these inventive activities, even all of them at once on a good day.”
Bob’s family have set up this memorial fund.