Richard Sorabji was born in Oxford on 8 November, the son of Richard 'Dick' Kaikushru Sorabji (1872–1950) and Mary Katherine (
née Monkhouse). He was educated at the
Dragon School and
Charterhouse. After two years
National Service, he attended
Pembroke College, Oxford, from 1955 to 1959 on the
Boulter and Radcliffe Scholarship. He took second-class degrees (see
Oxford University Calendar, 1958 p. 312 and 1960, p. 323) in 'Greek and Latin Literature' in 1957 and in 'Literae Humaniores' in 1959. Sorabji subsequently spent some time teaching at his old
prep school before completing a B.Phil. at Oxford under
Gwil Owen and
John Ackrill. Sorabji's first academic post was at
Cornell University in 1962, where he became associate professor in 1968, while working also as an editor of the
Philosophical Review. In 1970, he returned to England and joined the faculty of
King's College London, where he was appointed Professor of Ancient Philosophy in 1981. His main interest has been
Aristotle on whom he published his first books -
Aristotle on Memory in 1972 (an annotated translation with introductory essays) and (as co-editor) four volumes of
Articles on Aristotle from 1975 to 1979. He went on to write three books on the
ancient philosophy of
physics:
Necessity, Cause and Blame (1980),
Time, Creation, and the Continuum (1983), and
Matter, Space, and Motion (1988). Sorabji was President of the
Aristotelian Society from 1985 to 1986 and founded the international
Ancient Commentators on Aristotle project in 1987. The aim of this project has been to publish the first translations into English of mostly Greek philosophical texts from the period 200–600 A.D, mainly commentaries on Aristotelian works. 100 volumes have been published up the end of 2012, many of them translating the commentaries on Aristotle into English for the first time. Sorabji has himself contributed introductions to some of the volumes, as well as a general introduction to the commentators reprinted in many of the volumes. He lists the translations on his official website. Sorabji has written essays and a book on
M. K. Gandhi. He compares Gandhi to
Stoic philosophy so that both Gandhian philosophy of life and
Stoicism are illuminated. Sorabji became a fellow of the
British Academy in 1989. He founded the King's College Centre for Philosophical Studies between 1989 and 1991, with the aim of promoting philosophy to the wider public. He was Director of the
Institute of Classical Studies from 1991 to 1996 and British Academy Research Professor at Oxford from 1996 to 1999. He gave
Gifford Lectures in 1996 and 1997, which were later published in 2000 as
Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation. He was made a foreign honorary member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999. Sorabji retired from King's College in 2000 and subsequently held teaching positions as
Professor of Rhetoric at
Gresham College, London from 2000 to 2003, adjunct professor at the
University of Texas at Austin from 2000, distinguished visiting scholar at
New York University from 2000 to 2003, and visiting professor at
City University of New York from 2004. In 2008, he became Cyprus Global Distinguished Professor at New York University. Sorabji is an Honorary Fellow of
Wolfson College, Oxford, a
Fellow of King's College and a Research Fellow of the Institute of Classical Studies. Sorabji was appointed
Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1999 for his services to
ancient philosophy, and
knighted in the
2014 Birthday Honours for services to philosophical scholarship. == Publications ==