Prof. Akeel Bilgrami got a first degree in English Literature from Elphinstone College Bombay and then went as a Rhodes Scholar to Oxford University where he studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Chicago. He is the author of the books Belief and Meaning (Blackwell), Self-Knowledge and Resentment (Harvard University Press) and Secularism, Identity, and Enchantment (Harvard University Press, and in India Permanent Black Press) and Capital, Culture, and the Commons (Juxta Press and in India Permanent Black Press). He is currently writing a book on Gandhi's Philosophy as well as a longer work on the nature of practical reason.

Prof. Bilgrami teaches regular courses and seminars on a variety of subjects including The Philosophy of Language and Mind, Politics and Rationality, Religion and Politics, Cultural Identity and Modernity, and Gandhi’s thought. He is the President of the Trustees and the Executive Editor of The Journal of Philosophy. At Columbia University, Bilgrami has been the Chairman of the Philosophy Department from 1994-98, the Director of the Heyman Centre for the Humanities from Dec 2003-2010, and the Director of the South Asian Institute from 2013-2016. Akeel Bilgrami was elected to be a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library, held the Radhakrishnan Chair in India, visiting professorships at Oxford University and Yale University, and has been the recipient of fellowships and grants from the Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, National Endowment of the Humanities, as well as the Luce Foundation.