Isabelle Ratié studied Western philosophy at Panthéon-Sorbonne University (she holds a DEA in the history of Greek philosophy and an agrégation in philosophy) before turning her attention to the study of Sanskrit sources at the Sorbonne Nouvelle and then at the École pratique des hautes études, where she earned a DEA, a Ph.D., and an HDR. She has undertaken various research stays in India as well as at the University of Oxford, and worked from 2010 to 2014 as a research fellow at the University of Leipzig, then at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Vienna). She became a professor at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in 2014 (Chair of Sanskrit Language and Literature) and a senior member of the Institut universitaire de France in 2021; she was elected professor at the Collège de France in 2025.
Her research focuses on the history of Indian philosophy as a field of conflict and exchange between representatives of rival religious traditions. She is particularly interested in Śaiva and Buddhist philosophical systems, to which she has devoted several works. Her work, which has a significant philological dimension, includes the production of critical editions and the study of fragmentary works, and also addresses the material culture of Sanskrit manuscripts.
