Sophie Grace Chappell

Chappell is transgender, and transitioned from male to female in 2014. She married in 1988, and has four children.

In a 2005 paper on the Theaetetus, Chappell discusses the definition of episteme in five Platonic dialogues, arguing that Plato's work has positively identified human knowledge with judgement (in Greek: doxa) supported by a rational argument for justification (logos). As suggested above, moral perceptions may not always need a rational argument to be justified.

In 1991, Chappell returned to the University of Oxford and was a junior research fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford (1991–1994) and a lecturer in philosophy at Merton College, Oxford (1992–1994). She was then a lecturer at the University of East Anglia from 1994 to 1996 and at the University of Manchester 1996 to 1998. In 1998, she moved to the University of Dundee: she was promoted to senior lecturer in 2002 and to Reader in Philosophy in 2005. In May 2006, she joined the Open University as Professor of Philosophy and director of the Open University Ethics Centre.

Sophie Grace Chappell (born Timothy David John Chappell; November 1964) is an English philosopher and academic. Since 2006, she has been Professor of Philosophy at the Open University.

Chappell was born in November 1964. She studied Literae humaniores at Magdalen College, Oxford, having been awarded the Anne Shaw Classical Scholarship. She achieved a first in Honour Moderations in March 1986 and an upper second in the Final Honour School in June 1988, thereby graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree. She then moved to the University of Edinburgh to undertake research for a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree under the supervision of James Mackey and Dory Scaltsas. She completed her PhD in 1992 with a thesis titled "Aristotle and Augustine on voluntary action and freedom and weakness of the will".