Julian Baggini
English philosopher, author, and journalist
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Through Secularism and National identity
Education
Baggini was born in 1968 in Folkestone, the child of an Italian immigrant father and English mother. He grew up in Kent and was educated at the Harvey Grammar School, Folkestone, from 1980 until 1987. He later attended Reading University and gained a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1990.
In 1996, Baggini was awarded a PhD from University College London for a thesis on the philosophy of personal identity. Baggini is an honorary graduate and honorary research fellow of the University of Kent's department of philosophy.
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Career
In 1997, Baggini co-founded The Philosophers' Magazine with Jeremy Stangroom. In 1999, he was a founder of the Humanist Philosophers' Group, then part of the British Humanists Association. He is also a patron of Humanists UK. In 2009, Baggini was philosopher-in-residence at Wellington College, a public school in Berkshire. In 2012, he was also commissioned by the National Trust to be the philosopher-in-residence for the White Cliffs of Dover where he was required to reflect on the chalk cliffs and their significance to the national identity.
Baggini is a columnist for The Guardian, Prospect, the Financial Times, and a columnist and book reviewer for The Wall Street Journal. He has also written for New Humanist, The Week, New Statesman, The New York Times, and Literary Review. In addition to writing many books about the history and common themes of philosophy, he has also written more generally about the philosophy of food, as well as the nature of "Englishness". He speaks regularly at conferences and schools and has frequently spoken out about living without religion, against the teaching in schools of creationism, a loss of reason, which he asserts is "an enemy of mystery and ambiguity", and the benefits of secular education.
His 2018 book, How The World Thinks: A Global History Of Philosophy received a warm critical reception, with The Scotsman describing it as "ingenious and open-hearted", and the Financial Times calling it a "bold, fascinating book". In 2019, Baggini was named academic director of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. He is a member of the British trade union the Society of Authors and also appears in two novels by Alexander McCall Smith in The Sunday Philosophy Club Series.