Akeel Bilgrami


Akeel Bilgrami is an Indian philosopher of language and mind. He has been in the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University since 1985 after spending two years as an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Bilgrami is a secularist and an atheist who advocates an understanding of the community-oriented dimension of religion. For Bilgrami spiritual yearnings are not only understandable but also supremely human. He has argued in many essays that in our modern world, "religion is not primarily a matter of belief and doctrine but about the sense of community and shared values it provides in contexts where other forms of solidarity—such as a strong labor movement—are missing."

Selected publications