William Ritchie Sorley

William Ritchie Sorley (born November 4, 1855 in Selkirk (Scotland) , † July 28, 1935 in Cambridge , England ) was a Scottish philosopher .

Life

William Ritchie Sorley was a son of the Free Church of Scotland minister William Sorley and his wife Anna Ritchie. After completing his schooling, he studied at the University of Edinburgh and graduated from Trinity College (Cambridge) .

Between 1909 and 1933 Sorley taught as Knightsbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge . As a Gifford Lecturer , he was one of the representatives of British idealism . Sorley formulated his theses in his work A history of British Philosophy to 1900 and for this work he is still known today. In 1905 he was elected a member of the British Academy .

In 1933, Sorley resigned and retired into private life. Two years later, at the age of almost eighty, he died on July 28, 1935 in Cambridge, where he found his final resting place.

The poet Charles Sorley (1895–1915) is his son.

Works (selection)

• A history of British philosophy to 1900 . Greenwood Press, Westport 1973, ISBN 0-8371-6718-3 (reprinted from Cambridge 1920 edition).
• The ethics of naturalism. A criticism . Books for Libraries, Freeport, NY 1969, ISBN 0-8369-5056-9 (reprint of London 1904 edition; former title On the ethics of naturalism ).
• Jewish Christians and Judaism. A study in the history of the first two centuries . Bell, Cambridge 1881.
• Recent tendencies in ethics. Three lectures on clergy given at Cambridge . Blackwood, Edinburgh 1904.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed August 1, 2020 .