Alexander Bird was a Queen's Scholar at Westminster School and a Thomas White Scholar at St John's College, Oxford. He studied at the Ludwig Maximilians Universität in Munich and then at the University of Cambridge for his MPhil (St Edmund's College) and PhD (King's College). Thereafter, he was a civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food. His subsequent academic career includes permanent positions at the University of Edinburgh, University of Bristol, King's College London (Peter Sowerby Professor of Philosophy and Medicine), and the University of Cambridge (Bertrand Russell Professor). He has held visiting positions at Dartmouth College, Monash University, St Louis University, and at All Souls College, Oxford and Exeter College, Oxford.