The Hägerström Lectures 2008:
Simon Blackburn
Pragmatists versus Frege: from Berkeley to Putnam
March 31 – April 4
The lectures will contrast two approaches to philosophical theory. One, represented here by Frege, concentrates upon notions such as content, truth-conditions, ontology and metaphysics. Pragmatism substitutes genealogy, anthropology, practice, and action. I want to see how some pivotal issues in philosophy look if we approach them in the light of this opposition.
Lecture 1: Monday March 31, 11 A.M. – 1 P.M., University Main Building, Room IX
Setting up the contrast: the impact of deflationism
Lecture 2: Tuesday April 1, 11 A.M. – 1 P.M., University Main Building, Room IX
Some historical examples: Hume and Wittgenstein
Lecture 3: Wednesday April 2, 11 A.M. – 1 P.M; University Main Building, Room IX
Developments in the contemporary scene: expressivism and explanation
Lecture 4: Thursday April 3, 11 A.M. – 1 P.M., University Main Building, Room IV
Success semantics
Lecture 5: Friday April 4, 11 A.M. 1 P.M., University Main Building, Room IV
Prospects for the future
Meet Professor Bluckburn:
Wednesday April 2, 7 P.M., there will be a traditional informal party at the Department of Philosophy, Thunbergsvägen 3 H, to which the audience is cordially invited.
Simon Blackburn was born near Bristol in July 1944. Educated at Clifton College 195762, and Trinity College Cambridge (Moral Sciences, 19625). Junior Research Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge 19679. Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy, Pembroke College, Oxford, 1969 90. Edna J. Koury Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 19902001. He is currently the Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
He has held visiting appointments at the University of Melbourne, the University of British Columbia, Oberlin College, Princeton University, Ohio State University, the Universidad Autonomia da Mexico, and was for ten years Adjunct Professor at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra. From 19841990 he edited the journal Mind. He was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 2001.
His books are: Reason and Prediction, 1973, Spreading the Word 1984, Essays in Quasi-Realism 1993, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 1994, Ruling Passions 1998, Think 1999, Being Good 2001, Lust 2004, Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed 2005, and most recently Plato’s Republic (2006). Together with Keith Simmons he edited the Oxford Readings in Philosophy volume Truth, 2001.
Simon Blackburn will be the thirty fourth Hägerström Lecturer. Previous lecturers have been
· Konrad Marc-Wogau
· Georg Henrik von Wright
· Willard Van Orman Quine
· Patrick Suppes
· Peter Geach
· Alonzo Church
· David Lewis
· Amartya Sen
· Erik Stenius
· Donald Davidson
· Ingemar Hedenius
· Jaakko Hintikka
· Wilhelm K. Essler
· Saul Kripke
· Dagfinn Føllesdal
· David Kaplan
· Sören Halldén
· Hilary Putnam
· Richard M. Hare
· D. Hugh Mellor
· John Broome
· Martha C. Nussbaum
· Judith Jarvis Thomson
· Hidé Ishiguro
· Margaret Boden
· Max Cresswell
· Richard Jeffrey
· Christine Korsgaard
· Julia Annas
· Marie McGinn
· John McDowell
· Ian Hacking
· Allan Gibbard