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Simon Blackburn (born 1944) is a British academic philosopher known for his efforts to popularise philosophy. He attended Clifton College and went on to receive his bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1965 from Trinity College, Cambridge and his doctorate in 1970 from Churchill College, Cambridge. He is currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge's Faculty of Philosophy and Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina. He is also a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was previously a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford and has also taught at the University of North Carolina as an Edna J. Koury Professor. He is the current president of the Aristotelian Society, serving the 2009-2010 term.

In philosophy, he is best-known as the proponent of quasi-realism in meta-ethics and as a defender of neo-Hume views on a variety of topics; he is an atheist. He is a Vice-President of the British Humanist Association and a former editor of the journal Mind.

He makes occasional appearances in the British media, such as on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze.

On 15 September 2010, Blackburn, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter published in The Guardian, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the UK.

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