John Cottingham was born in London and educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, and at St John's College, Oxford University, where he gained Double First Class Honours in Classics and Philosophy; he later took his doctorate in Philosophy at Oxford University. He has held posts at Exeter College, Oxford University and the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, and his visiting appointments have included a Fulbright Scholarship and Visiting Professorship at Randolph Macon Women's College, Virginia USA, and an Erskine Fellowship at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He is at present University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading . Professor Cottingham is the author of numerous books and articles on seventeenth-century philosophy (with special reference to Descartes) and has given several broadcast talks on Descartes for the BBC; he has also written extensively on ethics and the philosophy of law.

He was from 1991-5 Chairman of the British Society for the History of Philosophy, and is (since 1993) editor of Ratio, the international journal of analytical philosophy.