A. C. Grayling

A. C. Grayling
CBE FRSA FRSL
At the 2011 Edinburgh International Book Festival
Master of the New College of the Humanities
Incumbent
Assumed office
2011
Personal details
Born
Anthony Clifford Grayling

(1949-04-03) 3 April 1949 (age 75)
Luanshya, Northern Rhodesia
NationalityBritish
Children3
Residence(s)Central London, England
Alma materUniversity of Sussex (BA, MA)
University of London (BA)
Magdalen College, Oxford (DPhil)
Signature
Websiteacgrayling.com
Philosophy career
EraContemporary philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
School
ThesisEpistemological Scepticism and Transcendental Arguments (1981)
Doctoral advisors
Main interests
Epistemology, history of ideas, humanist ethics, logic, metaphysics
Notable ideas
Criticism of arguments for the existence of God
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Anthony Clifford Grayling CBE FRSA FRSL (/ˈɡreɪlɪŋ/; born 3 April 1949) is a British philosopher and author. He was born in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and spent most of his childhood there and in Nyasaland (now Malawi).[1] In 2011 he founded and became the first Master of New College of the Humanities (now Northeastern University London), an independent undergraduate college in London. Until June 2011, he was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London, where he taught from 1991. He is also a supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford, where he formerly taught.[2]

Grayling is the author of about 30 books on philosophy, biography, history of ideas, human rights and ethics, including The Refutation of Scepticism (1985), The Future of Moral Values (1997), Wittgenstein (1992), What Is Good? (2000), The Meaning of Things (2001), The Good Book (2011), The God Argument (2013), The Age of Genius: The Seventeenth Century and the Birth of the Modern Mind (2016) and Democracy and its Crises (2017).

Grayling was a trustee of the London Library and a fellow of the World Economic Forum, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts.[3] For a number of years he was a columnist for The Guardian newspaper,[4] and presented the BBC World Service series Exchanges at the Frontier[5] on science and society.

Grayling was a director and contributor at Prospect magazine from its foundation until 2016. He is a vice-president of Humanists UK, honorary associate of the National Secular Society,[6] and Patron of the Defence Humanists.[7] His main academic interests lie in epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophical logic and he has published works in these subjects.[3] His political affiliations lie on the centre-left, and he has defended human rights and politically liberal values in print and by activism.[8] He is associated in Britain with other New Atheists.[9] He frequently appears in British media discussing philosophy and public affairs.[10] In his book, Democracy and Its Crisis, Grayling argues that voting systems must be reformed to prevent certain results, such as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump.[11][12]

  1. ^ Wells, Emma (25 November 2012). "Time and place: AC Grayling". The Sunday Times. ISSN 0956-1382. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
  2. ^ Grayling, A C. "Professor A C Grayling". New College of the Humanities. Archived from the original on 20 January 2021. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
  3. ^ a b Biography, acgrayling.com. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  4. ^ "AC Grayling - Page 7 of 14 - The Guardian". The Guardian.
  5. ^ "BBC World Service - Discovery, Exchanges At The Frontier, Episode 2 - Lawrence Krauss". BBC.
  6. ^ [1] National Secular Society – www.secularism.org.uk 20 June 2019
  7. ^ [2] Formerly United Kingdom Armed Forces Humanist Association – defencehumanists.org.uk.
  8. ^ Dianne Pretty – Defending her right to choose how to die " acgrayling.com"
  9. ^ Catto, Rebecca and Eccles, Jane. "Beyond Grayling, Dawkins and Hitchens, a new kind of British atheism", The Guardian, 14 April 2011
  10. ^ Should Britain become a secular state?, 24 March 2013, retrieved 23 September 2019
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference crisis was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference fraser was invoked but never defined (see the help page).