Sophia Connell

Starting Spring 2026

Sophia M. Connell (PhD, University of Cambridge) is Associate Professor of Philosophy. Prior to her appointment at Notre Dame, she was Reader in Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London. Connell previously taught philosophy at the University of Cambridge and the University of East Anglia and was a Research Fellow of St Johns College, Cambridge. She is a Committee Member of the British Society for the History of Philosophy, Associate Editor (Ancient Philosophy) of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy and on the Editorial Boards of Ancient Philosophy Today: Dialogia and the ‘Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science’ book series (Springer).

Connell’s primary research centres on ancient Greek philosophy, particularly Aristotle’s biology. She has worked extensively on Aristotle’s views on gender difference and more broadly on the connection between soul and body in his philosophy. She also works on topics in Aristotelian ethics, including friendship and parenting virtues, and on the bio-medical background to metaphors in the Plato corpus. The core of Connell’s most recent research investigates Aristotle’s views on animals and the environment. One area of particular interest is the theological framework he employs to conceptualise the human place in nature. She is author of Aristotle on Female Animals: A Study of the Generation of Animals (2016) (link) and Aristotle on Women: Physiology, Psychology and Politics (2021) ) (link) and the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Biology (2021) (link) and Aristotle’s Parts of Animals: A Critical Guide (2025).

Connell’s secondary area of research focuses on women in the history of analytic philosophy, especially G.E.M. Anscombe, Mary Midgley and Alice Ambrose. She the co-editor (with Frederique Janssen-Lauret) of Lost Voices: Women in Philosophy 1870-1970 (Routledge, 2023) (link).

Connell’s teaching spans a broad range of topics in ancient, medieval and contemporary philosophy; she especially enjoys teaching Presocratic Philosophy, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic Philosophy, Islamic medieval philosophy, Nāgārjuna, neo-Aristotelian ethics, animal and environmental ethics, the ethics of technology and feminism.

Representative Publications

‘Medical Knowledge and the Physiology of Eros in the Phaedrus 250c8-252c2’, Proceedings of the Thirteenth Symposium Platonicum Pragense, Plato’s Phaedrus, ed. Filip Karfik and Ondrej Krasa and Veronika Konrádová (Brill, forthcoming 2026)

‘Musonius Rufus’ “Should Daughters Receive the Same Education as Sons?”’ in The Brill Companion to Musonius Rufus, ed. J. Sellars and L. Gloyn (Brill, forthcoming 2026)

‘Aristotle on Human Use of Non- Human Animals’ in Animals in Greek, Arabic and Latin Philosophy, ed. Peter Adamson and Miira Tuominen, (Brill, 2025), 59-88

‘The Effect of the Constitution of Blood on Animal Character in Aristotle’s Parts of Animals’ in Aristotle’s Parts of Animals: A Critical Guide, ed. Sophia M. Connell, (Cambridge University Press, 2025), 217-35

‘Aristotle on Memory and Emotions in Human and Non-Human Animals’ in Memory and Emotions in Antiquity, ed. D. Spatharas and G. Kazantzidis (De Gruyter, 2024), 129-152 (link)

‘Aristotle on Women’s Virtues’ in The Routledge Handbook to Women and Ancient Greek Philosophy, ed. S. Brill and C. McKeen (Routledge, 2024), 388-405 (link)

‘Women’s Medical Knowledge in Classical Antiquity: Beyond Midwifery’, in Women Ancient Philosophers, ed. K. O’Reilly and C. Pellò (Cambridge University Press, 2023), 57–76 (link)

‘“Bad Philosophy” and “Derivative Philosophy”: Labels that Keep Women out of the Canon’, co-written with Frederique Janssen-Lauret, Metaphilosophy, 54: 2-3 (April 2023): 238-53 (link)

‘Alice Ambrose and Early Analytic Philosophy’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 30: 2 (2022): 312-335

‘“Nous Alone Enters From Outside”: Aristotelian Embryology and Early Christian Philosophy’ Journal of Ancient Philosophy, Special Issue: Aristotelian Biology and Christian Theology, 15: 2 (Oct. 2021): 109-138

‘Thinking Bodies: Aristotle on the Biological Aspects of Human Cognition’ in Encounters with Aristotelian Philosophy of Mind, ed. P. Gregorić and J.L. Fink, (Routledge, 2021), 223-48 (link)

‘Nutritive and Sentient Soul in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals II.5’, Phronesis, 65: 3 (Apr. 2020): 324-354

‘Aristotle for the Modern Ethicist’, Ancient Philosophy Today: Dialogoi, 1: 2 (Oct. 2019): 260-86

‘Nurture and Parenting in Aristotelian Ethics’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 119: 2 (July 2019): 179-200.

‘Parallels Between Tyrant and Philosopher in Plato’s Republic’, Polis: Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought, 35:2 (Aug. 2018): 447-477.

‘Aristotle’s Explanations of Monstrous Births and Deformities in Generation of Animals 4.4’ in The Generation of Animals. Cambridge Critical Guide, ed. Andrea Falcon and David Lefebvre (Cambridge University Press, 2018), 207-223 (link)

BBC Radio 4 programmes featuring Connell include:

Human Intelligence with Naomi Alderman: ‘Travellers: Aristotle’, broadcast 30 Mar. 2025 (link)

In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg on ‘Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics’, broadcast 2 Nov. 2023 (link)

In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg on ‘Aristotle’s Biology’, broadcast 7 Feb. 2019 (link)