Name Alexander George Role Philosopher | Awards MacArthur Fellowship | |
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Education Harvard University, Columbia College of Columbia University in the City of New York | ||
Alexander George is a professor of philosophy at Amherst College. He received his B.A. in 1979 from Columbia College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1981 and 1986, respectively. He was also a junior research fellow at New College and Wolfson College, Oxford University. In 2001 he received an honorary A.M. from Amherst college. His research interests include philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and the history of analytic philosophy.
George is the founder of AskPhilosophers.org, a website that allows visitors to submit philosophical questions to a panel of professors of philosophy. The site was launched on October 1, 2005. As of October 2010, there have been over 3,250 questions posted and over 4,200 responses. The questions have come from people of all ages and all walks of life, from countries around the world. The purpose of the website is to put the skills of trained philosophers at the service of the public, thereby helping to bridge the gap between the philosophical questions people encounter in everyday life and the answers and ideas that philosophers have come up with over the past 2,500 years. A book of selected questions and answers from the site, What Would Socrates Say?, has been published in many countries.
Alex George's interest in chess problems led him to start the internet forum ChessProblem.net. He has also composed some retroanalytical compositions. With fellow Amherst professor Lawrence Douglas, Professor George publishes humorous pieces in The Chronicle of Higher Education and other publications. Sense and Nonsensibility (ISBN 0-7432-6048-1), a book that pokes gentle fun at the worlds of literature and academia, appeared in 2004.