Professor Victor Caston has been awarded an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship. ACLS Fellowships support a faculty member through a year of continuous full-time research and writing. Victor will be on research leave next year at Clare Hall, Cambridge. The criteria used in judging ACLS fellowship applications include the potential of the project to make an original and significant contribution to knowledge, and the scholarly record and career trajectory of the applicant. There were 1191 applicants for 65 different ACLS Fellowships this year. Victor received one of only 20 fellowships available to full professors. Congratulations, Victor!

 

Research Project: The Stoics on Mental Representation and Content.

Project Abstract: This study focuses on Stoic theories of mental representation and content. It traces the development of the early Stoics’ views on content, which arose out of their response to Plato’s theory of Forms and over time evolved into a highly detailed and sophisticated semantic theory. Using this framework, it examines their treatment of mental states in terms of their basic notions of representation (phantasia) and endorsement (sunkatathesis), to understand the distinctive types of content these states possess and how they play their respective roles in our interactions with the world.