Cain Samuel Todd, senior lecturer in philosophy at Lancaster University, has died.
Dr. Todd was known for his work in aesthetics and the philosophy of mind, with a keen interest in issues surrounding values and our access to them.
He is the author of The Philosophy of Wine: A Case of Truth, Beauty and Intoxication (2010) and papers including “Imaginability, morality, and fictional truth: Dissolving the puzzle of ‘imaginative resistance” (2009), “Attending Emotionally to Fiction” (2012), “Fitting Feelings and Elegant Proofs: On the Psychology of Aesthetic Evaluation in Mathematics” (2018) and “Affective Memory, Imagined Emotion, and Bodily Imagery” (2023). You can learn more about his work here.
Todd started teaching at Lancaster University in 2003 after having earned his PhD in philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge. He has held visiting positions at the Universities of Geneva and Fribourg in Switzerland, at the Institut Jean Nicod in Paris, at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Münich, where he was the recipient of the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award (2022-3), and at the University of Notre Dame.
He died unexpectedly on July 23rd, 2026.
(The information for this memorial notice was provided by Fabrice Teroni.)
I’m so upset by this. Cain was a beautiful man.
So far as his philosophical legacy is concerned, for my money Cain wrote the best article ever written on imaginative resistance. He was also influential on whether the feeling of beauty in maths could be a guide to truth- with implications well beyond the mathematical case. He was mining a rich area between emotions and aesthetics and it did seem like a book was coming but I’m not sure we’ll ever see it now.
This is such sad news! For a while I attended a few conferences and workshops where Cain was also presenting, on topics related to aesthetics, mathematics and science. He was such a nice person and a fascinating thinker… His published work has also been quite influential on my thinking on aesthetics and emotions. He will be much missed!
I’m shocked to hear this. I thought highly of his papers on imaginative resistance and aesthetic antirealism, and I’ve his book on wine here on my shelf. We had a common friend, Fabian Dorsch, who also died too early.
This is a huge loss. His work on aesthetic-epistemic feelings (in “Fitting Feelings and Elegant Proofs” and elsewhere) is insightful, beautiful, and was just getting started. There is so much more to be said on the relationship between aesthetic and epistemic feelings; I wish he were here to say it.
Sad and shocking 🙁
This is extremely sad news. I met Cain a few times over the years – including as part of a group on a memorable hiking trip in the Swiss Alps – and he was always very likeable, entertaining, and sharp. I’m very sorry indeed to know that he’s no longer with us. Condolences to Cain’s colleagues and loved ones.
Really saddened by this. I hadn’t spoken to Cain in about 10 years but I was one of his students at Lancaster when I studied my Bachelor’s. He taught my favourite courses, was a joy to be around, and really influenced how I view philosophy. He helped change a lot of people’s lives, I imagine.
I am so saddened to hear this. Cain was my lecturer and dissertation supervisor during my BA at Lancaster. He was such an intelligent, spirited, erudite and inspiring person, and really pushed me to succeed. Fond memories of his seminars, plus beers and the occasional curry in Philosophy Society.