Alexander Bird

Alexander Bird
Born
Alexander James Bird

1964 (age 61–62)
AwardsQueen's Scholar, Westminster School
Thomas White Scholar, St John's College, Oxford
AHRC Fellowship
Philosophical Quarterly essay prize
Mind Association Senior Research Fellowship
Education
EducationWestminster School
St John's College, Oxford (BA)
Maximilianeum and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
St Edmund's College, Cambridge (MPhil)
King's College, Cambridge (PhD)
ThesisArithmetic, Grammar, and Ontology (1991)
Philosophical work
EraContemporary philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolAnalytic philosophy
InstitutionsUniversity of Bristol
King's College London
Main interestsPhilosophy of science, philosophy of medicine, metaphysics, epistemology
Notable ideasDispositional essentialist account of the laws of nature [1]
Websitehttp://www.alexanderbird.org

Alexander James Bird (born 1964) is a British philosopher and Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy at St John's College, Cambridge.

Career

In 2020, Bird was elected to the Bertrand Russell Professorship of Philosophy, succeeding Huw Price.[2] Previously he was Peter Sowerby Professor of Philosophy and Medicine at King's College London (2018–2020) and the professor of philosophy at the University of Bristol (2003–2017).[3] Bird was lecturer then reader and head of department at the University of Edinburgh (1993–2003). Bird has also taught at Dartmouth College and at Saint Louis University and was a visiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He was chair of the philosophy sub-panel in Research Excellence Framework 2014.[4]

Bird represented CULRC in the 1990 Henley Boat Races against OULRC.

Books

  • Philosophy of Science, Routledge, 1998
  • Thomas Kuhn, Acumen/Princeton University Press, 2000
  • Nature's Metaphysics, Oxford University Press, 2007
  • Knowing Science, Oxford University Press, 2022

See also

References

  1. ^ Carroll, John W. (18 June 2008). "Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Retrieved 18 March 2026.
  2. ^ Weinberg, Justin (30 January 2020). "Bird from KCL to Cambridge's Russell Professorship". Daily Nous.
  3. ^ "Bird from Bristol to KCL". Daily Nous. 27 July 2017. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
  4. ^ "Panel membership: REF 2014". Retrieved 16 March 2019.