John Locke Lectures Explained

The John Locke Lectures are a series of annual lectures in philosophy given at the University of Oxford. Named for British philosopher John Locke, the Locke Lectures are the world's most prestigious lectures in philosophy, and are among the world's most prestigious academic lectures. They were established in 1950 by the bequest of Henry Wilde. Another comparable lecture series is the Gifford Lectures, which are delivered annually at several universities in Scotland.

The first lecture series was offered to Ludwig Wittgenstein, who eventually declined. He felt uncomfortable giving formal lectures where the audience would not be asking or answering questions.^[1]

Lecturers

The lectures began as an uncertain biennial series, with the first lecturer from 1950 to 1951, and missing the second slot from 1952 to 1953. Between 1969 and 2001, the lectures became gradually more frequent. Since 2001, the lecture notes have been made available electronically.

Year Lecturer Lectures published as 1950–1951 1952–1953 no lectures 1954–1955 Hao Wang 1955–1956 Time and Modality (1957) 1957–1958 A.C. Jackson 1959–1960 1961–1962 1963–1964 1965–1966 Science and Metaphysics 1967–1968 1968–1969 1969–1970 On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme 1971–1972 1973–1974 Reference and Existence 1974–1975 1975–1976 1976–1977 no lectures 1977–1978 no lectures 1978–1979 Aspects of Reason 1979–1980 1980–1981 no lectures 1981–1982 no lectures 1982–1983 Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting 1983–1984 1984–1985 no lectures 1985–1986 no lectures 1986–1987 The Quest for Reality (2000) 1987–1988 no lectures 1988–1989 no lectures 1989–1990 Equality and Partiality 1990–1991 Mind and World

Year Lecturer Lectures published as 1991–1992 1992–1993 1993–1994 no lectures 1994–1995 From Metaphysics to Ethics 1995–1996 no lectures 1996–1997 Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong 1996–1997 Invariances (2001) 1998 1999 no lectures 2000 no lectures 2001 2002 Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, Integrity (2009) 2003 Kit Fine Semantic Relationism (2007) 2004 Truth, etc. (2007) 2005 A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume 1 (2007) 2006 Between Saying and Doing (2008) 2007 Our Knowledge of the Internal World (2008) 2008 2009 Being Realistic about Reasons (2013) 2010 Constructing the World (2012) 2011 Ancient Greek Philosophies as a Way of Life 2012 2013 2014 Anger and Forgiveness (2016) 2015 2016 Ted Sider 2017 Michael Smith 2018 Peter Railton 2019 Philip Pettit 2020 Susan Wolf 2022 Angelika Kratzer 2023 Jennifer Nagel 2024 Jonardon Ganeri

External links

• John Locke Lectures, complete list with some available online
• Archived list up to 2008

Notes and References

1. Book: Monk . Ray . Ludwig Wittgenstein : the duty of genius . 1991 . Vintage . London . 9780099883708 . 564–565.