Alexander Bird

Professor Alexander Bird is the Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, affiliated with the Faculty of Philosophy and St John's College. Previously, he served as Peter Sowerby Professor of Philosophy and Medicine at King's College London, chair in Philosophy at the University of Bristol, and lecturer/reader at the University of Edinburgh. He has held visiting positions at Dartmouth College, Saint Louis University, Monash University, and the Università degli studi di Bergamo, with visiting fellowships at Exeter College and All Souls College, Oxford.

His research focuses on metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, and history/philosophy of medicine. He leads the collaborative project Creativity Across the Arts and Sciences with Alison Hills (Oxford), critiquing empiricism across disciplines. His seminal work includes Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties (2007) and Knowing Science (2022), alongside over 50 journal articles.

Scientific awards include:

• Honorary Fellow of St John's College, Oxford
• Member (correspondant) of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (Institut de France)

Publications reveal interdisciplinary engagement with:

• Metaphysical realism and dispositional essentialism
• Scientific progress as knowledge accumulation
• Evidence-based medicine and replication crisis in scientific methodology
• Natural kinds, causation, and Kuhnian paradigms

He teaches supervisions in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, and philosophical logic for St John’s College students.