Bieri studied philosophy, English studies and Indian studies in both London and Heidelberg. From there he was awarded a doctoral degree by Dieter Henrich and Ernst Tugendhat for his work on the philosophy of time. After the conferral of his doctorate, Bieri worked as a scientific assistant at the Philosophical Seminar at University of Heidelberg.

Bieri co-founded the research unit "Cognition and Brain" at the German Research Foundation. The focuses of his research were the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and ethics. From 1990 through 1993, he was a professor of the history of philosophy at the University of Marburg; from 1993 he taught philosophy at the Free University of Berlin while holding the chair of analytic philosophy, succeeding his mentor, Ernst Tugendhat.