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In Memoriam: David Charles (1947-2026)

Brian Leiter

Professor Charles, who was emeritus at Yale (where he taught from 2014 to 2023), was a leading scholar of ancient philosophy, especially Aristotle. Prior to Yale, he taught at Oxford from 1979 until his move to Yale. Most recently, he was visiting professor of philosophy at Stanford.

Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Charles or for those who would like to comment on the significance of his work.

(Thanks to Chris Shields for letting me know about his death, and to Stephen Menn for identifying his year of birth.)

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7 responses to “In Memoriam: David Charles (1947-2026)”

  1. Christopher Bobonich

    I’m shocked and deeply saddened. We had emailed just a few days ago. David was a great scholar, a vibrant presence, and a wonderful person. He will be deeply missed both professionally and personally.

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  2. Juan Piñeros Glasscock

    I am shocked and so deeply sorry to hear about this. My thoughts are with Zafra and his family. I tried to write some standard memorial but could not, so this is what came of it.

    Memory ellipsis

    We sat at Zoi’s lunch, David’s favoured post-class location. He has ordered his usual panini, practicing his Greek in friendly terms with the owner. But today we’re not talking about the class we were co-teaching, but about a topic of mutual interest where we’ve reach a similar conclusion: common perception in Aristotle and its connection to Molyneaux’s problem and realism. My paraphrase of the conversation, as I remember them: ‘You see, Juan, I think this is all right that each sense has access to the common sensibles. But is that enough for realism?’ ‘Well, if each sense can access something beyond itself–size, movement, number and so on, isn’t the best explanation an independent reality with such properties’. ‘Hmm’. He raises his head, slightly sideways, in that way so distinctive of him. Letting the ideas think. Examining them, with the outmost seriousness. But I also know, he is not satisfied…

    …I didn’t know what to expect from David. My mentor, Jennifer Whiting, had described him as having written “the Book” on Aristotle’s philosophy of action. He was wearing a blue suit, with no tie, both formal but relaxed, with a sort of regality I remember thinking. I approached sheepishly. “Professor Charles? I’m Juan. I really enjoyed your book on Aristotle’s philosophy of action!” I paraphrase, from memory: “Very nice to meet you. Really? You enjoyed the book?”. He seemed genuinely amused and surprised, though I’m sure he’d heard this so many times. Only now it dawns on me how odd it is to approach someone to talk about a book they wrote over 30 years before, but somehow he made it seem natural, and perhaps we talked a bit about the priority of capacities over processes. Or perhaps Aristotle’s account of desire. I wish I could remember.

    That day after my talk he asked a question which I took as an objection, and later would come to understand as a friendly point, about my reading of ch.7 of the De Motu. That was usual with David. It would often take me years to understand the depth of his questions…

    One time he told me part of his interest in the history of philosophy was a reaction against a purely instrumentalist reading of science. If we could understand a reasonable trajectory for how we got here, then that would indicate that there’s something behind all our practices, towards which we are approaching. A reality that we can cognize…

    He wore a similar suit at Oxford the summer in grad school when I messaged to ask him recommendations of places to see while Allison and and I visited. Instead, he offered a personal tour. It was blistering hot, so his jacket hung elegantly the whole walk over his shoulder. He treated us to a nice lunch in a courtyard. He showed us his favourite spots, stopping by different colleges, where all the porters knew Professor Charles. At some point we stopped by Oriel, where he showed us the pictures of some of the alumni. He pointed to one of John Henry Newman, another of Rhodes. “Saints and pirates are formed in this place” with a devious smile… “And teachers, wonderful teachers,” I thought…

    When he spoke about Oxford you could sense the immense love he had for the place where he spent most of his life. But it was a love alive to its shortcomings, and alive to the ways in which it, and philosophy could be better. He spoke once, briefly, guardedly, about the hardships of being a Welsh student at Oxford, in what was still very much a class-conscious system. He spoke too about a tutor who was extremely harsh on students, until they learnt that when he pointed out a problem, what they should do is present it to him as a problem to be solved, so that he would get invested. I wonder whether David had made a conscious effort to not need such maneuvers. He was invested from the start…

    How to describe his teaching style? It was soft, mellow, comforting. You were in it together. (That is how, even a calm ‘do you have an argument for that?’ could sound aggressive in a voice so used to calmness, raising laughter around the room). But it was serious, and we wouldn’t be let off easy (Sometimes ‘the chap’ would join and raise the most difficult problems—the way pesky interlocutors do in Wittgenstein’s later writings). And it was always ‘we’. Somehow questions that I’d found out he had written whole articles on could seem utterly fresh in conversation. ‘The papers stay outside the room’, he used to say, so that the topic could be approached head on, anew…

    His comments would always end in ellipsis, I came to think, because they were never meant as a final word. Always an invitation for further thought…

    The class we taught was on emotions. His interest in the topic, central to The Undivided Self, was the fact that emotions seem so clearly hylomorphic. Too feel it is at once a remarkable phenomenological experience (as Sartre highlights brilliantly in the essay we assigned for the class), and at once a bodily process, and subject to empirical scrutiny (he was a fan of Damasio’s work on somatic markers). His essay on the topic is brilliant, as everything else I’ve read from him. And today I know he’s gone, and my eyes irk, and my stomach tumble, and I feel deeply saddened that I won’t get a chance to converse with him again…

    We had just exchanged emails. He sent a loving congratulatory note in response to the announcement of our latest son. He and Zafra were, as he put it, en route to “grandparent patrol’ in preparation to the birth of his second grandson. And I thought: What a lucky grandson to have him as his grandfather. What a lucky family he has. My thoughts are with them today…

    …I had an insight! ‘Well, if you get access to common perceptibles, you can act on those, and action surely requires an independent reality.’. He seemed happier with that, but still not altogether satisfied. And then we talked a bit more about the class. But it is just one among many conversations that I keep ruminating about in my head. Some voices become so important to you, that you take part of them, and you make them part of your thoughts, and then you cannot think without them. I will miss David dearly, but I will keep thinking with him…

    RIP my beloved teacher

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  3. Michael Sandoval

    His work on Aristotle’s teleology reshaped how a generation of graduate students read the Physics, and he was unusually generous with people outside his own institution. A real loss to the field. Thank you for noting it here.

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  4. Giulia Mingucci

    I will always hold onto this image of David: sitting cross-legged in his study at Oriel College, Oxford, with a blackboard full of diagrams and notes behind him: the unfolding results of his thoughts and those of his interlocutor – which in that case was me. Ideas that may have been more or less good, but which he nevertheless took into consideration, evaluated with respect, subjected to critique, and brought to full development.
    I have never known anyone of such brilliant intelligence, who was at the same time so remarkably generous. His way of debating – always taking the opinions of his interlocutors seriously, without any prejudice, any attempt to impose his own point of view – has remained etched in my mind as a virtuous, perhaps unattainable, model of a teacher; indeed, of a Philosopher.
    He will be deeply missed by everyone.

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  5. Tad Brennan

    Very sad news. I had the opportunity to get to know David during a series of workshops on the Parva Naturalia that he organized at Yale. His complete mastery of the Aristotelian corpus, as well as his close attention to the philosophical issues at stake, was evident in all of his interactions.
    Some of the shock of this news is certainly due to his physical and intellectual vigor — he seemed far younger than his years. It’s a great loss to have him gone.

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  6. Joshua Mendelsohn

    When, as a nervous graduate student, I found my way into a small conference of senior scholars, David found out I was Australian and engaged me in gentle ribbing about the cricket. The gesture of recognition meant a great deal at the time, and it was typical of him. I don’t think I ever heard his name come up in conversation without someone adding something about how kind he was or what a great conversationalist he was or how much he just wanted to talk philosophy. I saw him at conferences over the years and he had a way of making it feel like you were a close acquaintance even if you had only spoken a handful of times. I was looking forward to many more. What a loss for the Ancient Philosophy community.

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  7. Matthew H. Kramer

    I did not have any personal acquaintance with David Charles, but through his writings he did more than anyone else to illuminate Aristotle’s moral psychology for me.

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