[2] Cottingham was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School near London, and St John's College, Oxford.
[3] Cottingham has also argued that Descartes's view of animals as ‘machines’ does not have the reductionistic implications commonly supposed.
[4] Finally, Cottingham has explored the importance of Descartes as a moral philosopher, with a comprehensive picture of the good life that draws both on his scientific work (in physiology and psychology) and also on the theistic outlook that informs all his philosophy.
[6] Cottingham criticizes a putative psychological impoverishment of contemporary moral philosophy, and argues that any plausible theory of a good and integrated life for human beings needs to draw on the insights available from a broadly psychoanalytic perspective.
[9] Cottingham's more recent work in the philosophy of religion argues for the primacy of the moral and spiritual aspects of religious allegiance over theoretical and doctrinal components.