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 Lectures ^[1]

Year	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[2]
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 (read by Professor J. Wisdom)[3]	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[4]
1975	Professor William Kneale	Grammar, logic, and arithmetic
1978	Professor Max Black[5]	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 (some simple ideas about) Probability

See also

• Birkbeck Lecture in Ecclesiastical History
• Lees Knowles Lecture