An alumnus of Ecole Normale Supérieure with an agrégation and a PhD in Philosophy from the Sorbonne, Souleymane Bachir Diagne is a professor of Philosophy and Francophone Studies at Columbia University and a Director of the Institute of African Studies until 2024. Prior to his appointment at Columbia, Professor Diagne taught philosophy at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal, for 20 years before joining Northwestern University in 2002 as a professor in the departments of Philosophy and Religion, with an affiliation to the Program of African Studies.

He is the author of numerous works in the fields of the history of algebraic logic, Islamic philosophy and philosophy in Africa. His research focuses on the history of philosophy and algebraic logic, the history of Islamic philosophy and African philosophy. At the heart of his philosophical work is a reflection on a universal of encounter, a universal from the plural of the world. His most recent publications in English are: The Ink of the Scholars. Reflections on Philosophy in Africa, Dakar, Codesria, 2016; Open to Reason: Muslim Philosophers in Conversation with the Western Tradition, New York, Columbia University Press, 2018; Postcolonial Bergson, New York, Fordham University Press, 2019; In Search of Africa(s). Universalism and Decolonial Thought (co-author: Jean-Loup Amselle), Cambridge, UK & Medford, MA, Polity Press, 2020; African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson and the Idea of Negritude, New York, The Other Press, 2023.

An Officer of the National Order of Arts and Letters from the French government, Professor Diagne is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Senegalese Academy of Sciences and techniques. He is also an associate member of the Royal Academy of Belgium and of the Royal Academy of Morocco.

Professor Diagne served on the Steering Committee for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2022 and was a member of the Award Master Jury in 2010.