Simon
Blackburn was born near Bristol in July 1944. Educated at Clifton College 1957
— 62, and Trinity College Cambridge (Moral Sciences, 1962 —5).
Junior Research Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge 1967—9. Fellow and
Tutor in Philosophy, Pembroke College, Oxford, 1969 —90. Edna J. Koury
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill, 1990 —2001. He is currently the Bertrand Russell Professor of
Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge. He is also a part time distinguished research professor at UNC,
Chapel Hill.
He has held visiting appointments at
the University of Melbourne, the University of British Columbia, Oberlin
College, Princeton University, Ohio State University, the Universidad Autonomia
da Mexico, and was for ten years Adjunct Professor at the Research School of
Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra. From 1984
—1990 he edited the journal Mind. He was elected
Fellow of the British Academy in 2001 and Honorary Foreign Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008.
His books are: Reason and
Prediction, 1973, Spreading the Word 1984, Essays in
Quasi-Realism 1993, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 1994, Ruling
Passions 1998, Think 1999, Being Good 2001, Lust 2004, Truth:
A Guide 2005, PlatoÕs Republic (2006), How to
Read Hume (2008), The Big Questions: Philosophy, and Practical
Tortoise Raising and other Philosophical Essays 2010. For more
information see elsewhere on this site. Together with Keith Simmons he edited
the Oxford Readings in Philosophy volume Truth, 2001.
He married Angela Bowles, 1968 and
has two children, Gwendolen, b. 1973 and James, b. 1975.