Gail Fine

Gail Fine
Alma mater	University of Michigan, Harvard University, University of Oxford
Spouse(s)	Terence Irwin
Institutions	Cornell University, University of Oxford
Main interests	Ancient philosophy

Gail Fine is a Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University. She is also a Visiting Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Oxford University, and a Senior Research Fellow at Merton College, Oxford University.

Fine earned her B.A. from the University of Michigan (1971); and her MA (1973) and PhD from Harvard University (1975). She also holds an MA from Oxford (2009). She has taught at Cornell University since 1975, and has been affiliated with Oxford University since 2007. She is the recipient of fellowships from the NEH and ACLS. In 1992, she won Cornell's Clark Award for distinguished teaching.

Gail Fine is married to Terence Irwin, who is the Professor of the History of Philosophy at Oxford University and a fellow of Keble College, Oxford. In 2013, the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell held a conference in honor of Gail Fine and Terence Irwin. She is the daughter of the American historian Sidney Fine.

Fine specializes in ancient philosophy. Fine's first book, On Ideas: Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s Theory of Forms, is the first full-length book in English to discuss Aristotle's lost essay Peri Ideôn (On Ideas). The essay survives only in fragments preserved by the Greek commentator Alexander, in his commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics. In it, Aristotle formulates and criticizes a number of arguments for the existence of Platonic forms. Fine analyzes the arguments Aristotle ascribes to Plato and assesses his criticisms of them, asking whether he correctly interprets Plato's arguments for and views about the nature and existence of forms. She also considers aspects of Aristotle’s alternative epistemological and metaphysical views, and relates both his and Plato's views to contemporary issues in metaphysics, such as the distinction between universals and particulars, the range of universals, and whether they can exist uninstantiated.

Fine's second book, Plato on Knowledge and Forms: Selected Essays, collects 15 articles on Plato's metaphysics and epistemology. Among the topics these essays consider are Meno's paradox; knowledge and belief in Republic 5-7; the Theaeteteus; the separation of forms; whether forms are immanent; and forms as causes.

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