He is professor emeritus at the Department of Philosophy and the Center for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, University of Bergen.

He was later a research assistant for Herbert Marcuse and Avrum Stroll at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) 1966–67; dr.philos.

He was Advisory Professor at East China Normal University from 1998, and Fellow (Kurator) at the Hans Jonas Zentrum in Berlin from 1998.

He received the Lauritz Meltzer Award for most outstanding research at the University of Bergen in the period 1990–1996.

[2][circular reference] The Tønnes Andenæs Award, together with Nils Gilje, for Filosofihistorie 1–2 (A History of Western Thought), in 1999.