Professor De Mul studied Philosophy in Utrecht and Amsterdam and in 1993 he obtained his PhD (cum laude) at the University of Nijmegen. He was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan and Fudan University Shanghai, and he is a regular Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. From 2007 to 2010 he was president of the International Association of Aesthetics (IAA).

His research focuses on the (partly overlapping) domains of philosophical anthropology, philosophy of art and culture, and the philosophy of information and communication technologies.