Tarner Lectures
The Tarner lectures are a series of public lectures in the philosophy of science given at Trinity College, Cambridge since 1916. Named after Mr Edward Tarner, the lecture addresses 'the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Relations or Want of Relations between the different Departments of Knowledge.' The inaugural lecture was given by Alfred North Whitehead in the autumn of 1919 and are published as his "The concept of nature."
Past Lectures
Full list of Past Tarner LecturesYear | Speaker | Lecture Title |
1919 | Dr Alfred North Whitehead | The Concept of Nature |
1923 | Dr C. D. Broad | The border-line between physics and psychology |
1926 | Hon. Bertrand Russell | The analysis of matter |
1929 | Professor G.E. Moore | Knowledge direct and indirect |
1931 | Revd F. R. Tennant | The relations between the different departments of knowledge |
1935 | Mr A.D. Ritchie | The natural history of mind |
1938 | Sir Arthur Eddington | The philosophy of physical science |
1941 | Dr Cecil Alec Mace | Causality and mind |
1946 | Professor R. B. Braithwaite | Laws of nature, probability, and scientific explanation |
1947 | Sir Edmund Whittaker | The concepts of physics |
1949 | Professor Joseph Henry Woodger | Biology and language |
1953 | Professor Gilbert Ryle | Cross purposes between theories |
1956 | Professor Erwin Schrödinger | The physical basis of consciousness |
1960 | Professor Carl Pantin | The A sciences and the B sciences |
1962 | Mr H.A.C. Dobbs | The concept of time |
1965 | Professor Hermann Bondi | Assumption and myth in physical theory |
1967 | Professor Georg Henrik von Wright | Time, Change and Contradiction |
1970 | Dr Gerd Buchdahl | Science and rational structures |
1975 | Professor William Kneale | Grammar, logic, and arithmetic |
1978 | Professor Max Black | Models of rationality |
1982 | Professor E. O. Wilson | Socio-biology and comparative social theory |
1985 | Professor Freeman Dyson | Origins of life |
1988 | Sir Andrew Huxley | Matter, life, evolution |
1991 | Professor Ian Hacking | Kinds of people and kinds of things |
1994 | Professor Michael Redhead | From physics to metaphysics |
1996 | Professor Martin J. S. Rudwick | Constructing geohistory in the age of revolution |
2000 | Professor Simon Conway Morris | Footsteps to eternity: the implications of evolution |
2006 | Professor Peter Galison | Images, Objects, and the Scientific Self |
2010 | Professor Simon Schaffer | When the stars threw down their spears: Histories of Astronomy and Empire |
2012 | Professor Sir Geoffrey Lloyd | The ideals of inquiry: an ancient history |
2019 | Professor Elliott Sober | Solving Problems in the Philosophy of Science by using Probability |