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Victor Caston Professor of Philosophy & Classical Studies Former editor of Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy vcaston@umich.edu | homepage
My research focuses primarily on ancient philosophy of mind: how the soul is related to the body, whether it has any distinctive causal power of its own, and how its states can represent the world or have content. I have looked at these issues especially in the Aristotelian tradition; but my long term research has been directed at the last question, concerning content, throughout the whole of Greek philosophy, from Parmenides and the sophist Gorgias, through Plato and Aristotle, to Hellenistic philosophers like the Stoics and beyond, to early medieval philosophers such as Augustine.
My approach to ancient texts is resolutely philosophical: I am interested in whether ancient philosophers’ arguments, analyses, distinctions, and concepts are good ones, and whether they have the resources to respond to questions and objections which their contemporaries, or our own, could put to them. Only in this way, I believe, can we take the true measure of their claims. This approach requires close readings of the text that must be sensitive to its original language and informed by an understanding of the context in which it occurs, both in the author’s works as a whole and in the intellectual tradition of which it is a part. But my ultimate aim is philosophical: I want to recover a sense of the interest and power of these ancient ideas and to see how they bear on our own discussions today.
At the moment, I am finishing up two articles on Aristotle (one on perceptual content and another on the unity of psychology). Other projects in the works include a paper on Aristotle on illusions, hallucinations, and dreams; a paper on ancient discussions of the “veil of perception.” and a paper on Theophrastus on perception.
I also have two current book projects. The main project at the moment is a monograph on the Stoics' theory of mental representation and content (essentially their theory of phantasia and lekta), which aims to show their views first originated and developed over time. This is part of my long term research program on the problem of intentionality in ancient philosophy, which I will be producing for Cambridge University Press.
The second book project is on Alexander of Aphrodisias (2nd–3rd c. CE), the last great Peripatetic commentator on Aristotle, an Aristotelian of a stature comparable to Thomas Aquinas or Ibn Rushd (Averroes). I am working on the second volume of a two volume translation and commentary of his On the Soul for the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series (Duckworth/Cornell UP; the first volume appeared in 2012). Alexander’s On the Soul is a systematic treatise that reworks Aristotle’s views on the soul in an orderly way from their foundations in his metaphysics. Alexander takes psychology to be based on principles that can be found throughout the natural order, beginning with the four elements, and argues that the organization of these basic substances into new forms of ever-increasing complexity can explain the striking phenomena that characterise living things, from growth and reproduction, through perception, representation, and desire, to the highest forms of intellectual activity. The result is a highly nuanced form of naturalism, which aims to steer clear of the excesses of both Platonic dualism and Stoic materialism. As the last and greatest of the commentators who declared their primary allegiance to Aristotle and were largely untainted by Platonism, Alexander is the first to articulate an Aristotelianism remarkably congenial to contemporary Aristotelians and hence of great interest today.
My future plans include a monograph on Aristotle on intentionality, as part of my long-term research program on intentionality, and a monograph surveying ancient theories of perception, from the Presocratics to the Neoplatonists.
Select Publications
Alexander of Aphrodisias: On the Soul, Part I
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, vols. 50–62
Presocratic Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Alexander Mourelatos (co-edited with Daniel Graham)Articles
- “Concepts in Classical Greece: Aristotle & his Predecessors,” In S. Schmid & H. Taieb (eds.), A Philosophical History of the Concept (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
- “The Stoics on Mental Representation.” In J. Klein & N. Powers (eds.), The Oxford Handbook in Hellenistic Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
- “Aristotle on the Appearance of Colors and Other Perceptibles,” In K. Ierodiakonou & V. Decaix (eds.), Theories of Colour from Democritus to Descartes, 52–99. London: Routledge, 2024.
- “Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Emergentism: Hylomorphism Perfected.” In D. Charles (ed.), The History of Hylomorphism: From Aristotle to Descartes, 154–73. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023.
- “Aristotle and the Cartesian theatre.” In P. Gregoric and J. Fink (eds.), Encounters with Aristotelian Philosophy of Mind, 169–220. London: Routledge, 2021.
- “Aristote et l’unité de la psychologie : comment diviser l’âme?” In F. Graziani and P. Pellegrin (eds.), L’héritage d’Aristote aujourd’hui : science, nature et société, 199–229. Actes de la rencontre interdisciplinaire organisée à l’Institut d’Etudes Scientifiques de Cargèse du 5 au 8 mars 2019 par la Fédération de Recherche Environnement et Société. (Sophia: Studi interdisciplinari sul mondo antico, vol. 2) Alessandria, Italy: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2020.
- “Aristotle on the Transmission of Information: Receiving Form without the Matter.” In D. Bennett & J. Toivanan (eds.), Philosophical Problems in Sense Perception: Testing the Limits of Aristotelianism, 15–55. (Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol. 26.) Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2020.
- “Intentionality in Ancient Greek Philosophy.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Revised, November 2019.
- “Theophrastus on Perceiving,”” Rhizomata 7 (2019), 188–225.
- “Aristotle on the Reality of Colors and Other Perceptibles,” Res Philosophica 95 (2018), 35–68.
- “Perception in Ancient Philosophy.” In Mohan Matthen (ed.), Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Perception, 29–50. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
- “Higher-Order Awareness in Alexander of Aphrodisias.” Bulletin for the Institute of Classical Studies 55 (2012), 31–49. (Special number in memory of Robert W. Sharples, edited by Peter Adamson.)
- “How Hylomorphic Can You Get? Comment on David Charles, ‘Aristotle’s Psychological Theory’.” Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, 24 (2008), 30–49.
- “Aristotle’s Psychology.” In M. L. Gill and P. Pellegrin (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Ancient Philosophy, 316–46. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006.
- “The Spirit and the Letter: Aristotle on Perception.” In R. Salles (ed.), Metaphysics, Soul, and Ethics: Themes from the work of Richard Sorabji, 245–320. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
- “Aristotle on Consciousness.” Mind 111 (2002), 751–815.
- “Gorgias on Thought and its Objects.” In V. Caston and D. W. Graham (eds), Presocratic Philosophy: Essays in honour of Alexander Mourelatos, 205–32. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2002.
- “Connecting Traditions: Augustine and the Greeks on Intentionality.” In Dominik Perler (ed.), Ancient and Medieval Theories of Intentionality, 23–48. (= Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, Bd. 76.) Leiden: Brill, 2001.
- “Aristotle’s Two Intellects: A Modest Proposal.” Phronesis 44 (1999), 199–227.
- “Something and Nothing: The Stoics on Concepts and Universals.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 17 (1999), 145–213.
- “Aristotle and the Problem of Intentionality.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 58 (1998), 249–98.
- “Epiphenomenalisms, Ancient and Modern.” The Philosophical Review 106 (1997), 309–63.
- “Why Aristotle Needs Imagination,” Phronesis 41 (1996), 20–55.
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