David Sedley

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David Sedley
Born (1947-05-30) 30 May 1947 (age 71)
NationalityUnited Kingdom
Alma materTrinity College, Oxford
University College London
Scientific career
FieldsAncient philosophy
InstitutionsChrist's College, Cambridge
Doctoral advisorA. A. Long

David Neil Sedley FBA (born 30 May 1947) is a British philosopher and historian of philosophy. He was the seventh Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Cambridge University.

Early life[edit]

Sedley was educated at Trinity College, Oxford where he was awarded a first class honours degree in Literae Humaniores in 1969. He was awarded a PhD in 1974 by University College London for a text, translation and commentary on Book XXVIII of Epicurus' On Nature.

Academic career[edit]

Since 1976 Sedley has been a fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge; from 1996 he was Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Cambridge University before in July 2000 being elevated to the Laurence Professorship of Ancient Philosophy. He retired from this position at the end of September 2014.[1] He was succeeded in this post by his former student, Gábor Betegh.

He has held visiting appointments at Princeton University (September 1981 - March 1982), University of California, Berkeley (1984 and 2004), Yale University (1990), and Cornell University (2001).

Honours[edit]

He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in July 1994.[2]

Publications[edit]

  • The Hellenistic Philosophers (with A. A. Long), Cambridge 1987
  • Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom, Cambridge 1998
  • The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philosophy, Cambridge 2003
  • Plato's Cratylus, Cambridge 2003
  • The Midwife of Platonism. Text and Subtext in Plato's Theaetetus, Oxford 2004
  • Creationism and its Critics in Antiquity, Berkeley and Los Angeles 2007
  • Pyrrhonists, Patricians, Platonizers. Hellenistic Philosophy in the Period 155-86 BC (edited with A. M. Ioppolo), Naples, 2007

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

Academic offices
Preceded by
Gisela Striker
Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy Cambridge University
2000 - 2014
Succeeded by
Gábor Betegh