David Charles studied philosophy at Oxford University, where he earned B.Phil. and D.Phil. degrees. He was a Fellow in Philosophy at Oriel College for over thirty years, for the last eight as a Colin Prestige Research Professor. From 2014 until 2023 he was the Howard H. Newman Philosophy Professor at Yale University. Throughout this period, his research has focused mainly on ancient philosophy, especially on Aristotle’s philosophy, and on Philosophy of Mind.

Charles is the author of numerous books and articles on a wide range of topics. His earlier books include “Aristotle’s Philosophy of Action” (1984)  and “Aristotle on Meaning and Essence” (2000)  He also edited or co-edited several volumes, including “Explanation, Reduction and Realism”  (1992) and “Definition in Greek Philosophy” (2009). More recently, he has published “The Undivided Self: Aristotle and the Mind/Body Problem”(2021) which argues that Aristotle regarded many psychological phenomena as inextricably psycho-physical and this this theory, although far from a standard post-Cartesian option, remains “a defensible and attractive”.  He has also edited a companion volume,  “The History of Hylomorphism” (2023) - a work of many scholars in later Greek, Roman, Arabic, western medieval and early modern philosophy - which attempts to understand how Aristotle’s version of hylomorphism was transformed during its first two millennia into something close to Cartesianism. He is currently completing, together with Michail Peramatzis (Oxford), a study of the central books of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, entitled “The Metaphysics in the Metaphysics: the philosophical project of the central books…” While in Chicago he will be working on and discussing aspects of Aristotle’s action theory in his seminar and is looking forward to interacting with students and faculty on these issues.

Charles has delivered invited papers at universities throughout Europe, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and in Brazil, Columbia, Japan, and China, among other countries. His honors include an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Athens and a fellowship from the Learned Society of Wales. In 2024 OUP published “Aristotelian Metaphysics”, a Festschrift in his honor, containing essays by fifteen colleagues and former students.