David Preston

I am a Lecturer in Philosophy in the Department of Politics, International Relations, and Philosophy. I teach undergraduate modules on Philosophical Methods, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, Epistemology and Metaphysics, and Digital Ethics, along with a postgraduate module on the Reception of Socrates from Antiquity to Modernity. 

My primary research interests lie in Ancient Philosophy (and especially where it intersects with Ancient Comedy), but I also have interests in Aesthetics and supervise both undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations that fall broadly within these subjects.

Before joining the department in 2017, I previously taught at King's College London. 

Teaching Awards:

Royal Holloway College Prize for Excellence in Teaching, 2020: Awarded for my submission ‘Putting Aesthetics into Practice: Study Tour of the Picture Gallery’, which entailed incorporating a tour of the College Picture Gallery as part of my Aesthetics module so the students could put the theory they had learned elsewhere on the module into practice.

Royal Holloway Commendation for Excellence in Teaching, 2021:  Commended for my Fantasy Logic League

Royal Holloway Commendation for Excellence in Teaching, 2022: Commended for my extra-curricular Summer Schools

Golden Apple for Teaching Exellence (Student Society Award), Royal Holloway. Awarded 6 times: 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025.

Royal Holloway College Teaching Innovation Award, 2021: £350 to use on prizes for winners and runners up of the Fantasy Logic League. 

Royal Holloway College Teaching Innovation Award, 2019: £1,000 prize to organise a National Gallery Study Tour for students taking modules in Aesthetics or Philosophy and the Arts.