The William James Lectures are a series of invited lectureships at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Chronological list of invited lectureships

:This compilation is based on a mimeographed list found in the clippings file at the Harvard Library Archives. The mimeographed list only covered the lectures delivered through 1971. The remaining items were supplied by searching for relevant monographs in the catalogs of the Harvard Library and the Library of Congress. Since not all of the lecture series resulted in a published book, the list may be incomplete. *

John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and Education reform, educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century. The overridi ...

('30–'31) " Art as Experience" *

Arthur Lovejoy Arthur Oncken Lovejoy (October 10, 1873 – December 30, 1962) was an American philosopher and intellectual historian, who founded the discipline known as the history of ideas with his book ''The Great Chain of Being'' (1936), on the topic ...

('32–'33) "The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea" *

Wolfgang Köhler Wolfgang Köhler (; 21 January 1887 – 11 June 1967) was a German psychologist and phenomenologist who, like Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka, contributed to the creation of Gestalt psychology. During the Nazi regime in Germany, he pro ...

('34–'35) "The Place of Value in a World of Facts" *

Étienne Gilson Étienne Henri Gilson (; 13 June 1884 – 19 September 1978) was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy. A scholar of medieval philosophy, he originally specialised in the thought of Descartes; he also philosophized in the tradition ...

('36–'37) "

The Unity of Philosophical Experience ''The Unity of Philosophical Experience'' is a 1937 book by Étienne Gilson in which the author provides a critique of Western philosophy, focused in turn on medieval philosophy, Cartesianism, and modern Kantianism and Comtean positivism. Recep ...

" *

Kurt Goldstein Kurt Goldstein (November 6, 1878 – September 19, 1965) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist who created a holistic theory of the organism. Educated in medicine, Goldstein studied under Carl Wernicke and Ludwig Edinger where he focused on ...

('38–'39) "Human Nature in the Light of Psychopathology" *

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...

('40–41) "An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth" * E. L. Thorndike ('42–'43) "Human Nature and Human Institutions" * William E. Hocking ('46–'47) "Issues in Contemporary Philosophy of Law" *

B. F. Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1948 until his retirement in ...

('47–'48) "Verbal Behavior" * Karl R. Popper ('49–'50) "The Study of Nature and Society" * Frank A. Beach ('51–'52) "A Biological Approach to Psychology" *

J. L. Austin John Langshaw Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was an English philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, best known for developing the theory of speech acts. Austin pointed out that we use lan ...

('54–'55) "

How to Do Things with Words John Langshaw Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was an English philosophy of language, philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, best known for developing the theory of speech acts. Austin pointe ...

" *

Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer ; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II. He is often ...

('56–'57) "The Hope of Order" * Donald B. Lindsley ('58–'59) "Brain Organization and Behavior" *

Gabriel Marcel Gabriel Honoré Marcel (7 December 1889 – 8 October 1973) was a French philosopher, playwright, music critic and leading Christian existentialist. The author of over a dozen books and at least thirty plays, Marcel's work focused on the moder ...

('61–'62) "The Existential Background of Human Dignity" *

Herbert A. Simon Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was an American scholar whose work influenced the fields of computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. His primary research interest was decision-making within organi ...

('62–'63) "Symbolic Processes in Human Behavior" * Edwin H. Land ('66–'67) "Color Vision from Retina to Retinex" *

H. Paul Grice Herbert Paul Grice (13 March 1913 – 28 August 1988), usually publishing under the name H. P. Grice, H. Paul Grice, or Paul Grice, was a British philosopher of language who created the theory of implicature and the cooperative principle (wi ...

('66–'67) "Logic and Conversation" * A. J. Ayer (1970) "Russell and Moore: The Analytical Heritage" *

Donald Broadbent Donald Eric (D. E.) Broadbent CBE, FRS (Birmingham, 6 May 1926 – 10 April 1993) was an influential experimental psychologist from the United Kingdom. His career and research bridged the gap between the pre-World War II approach of Sir Freder ...

(1971) "In Defense of Empirical Psychology" * Jeffrey Satinover (1974) "Imagination in Art and Religion" *

Michael Dummett Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett (; 27 June 1925 – 27 December 2011) was an English academic described as "among the most significant British philosophers of the last century and a leading campaigner for racial tolerance and equality." H ...

(1976) "The Logical Basis of Metaphysics" * Donald T. Campbell (1977) "Descriptive Epistemology: Psychological, Sociological, Evolutionary" *

Richard Wollheim Richard Arthur Wollheim (5 May 1923 − 4 November 2003) was a British philosopher noted for original work on mind and emotions, especially as related to the visual arts, specifically, painting. Wollheim served as the president of the Britis ...

(1982) "The Thread of Life" *

Allen Newell Allen Newell (March 19, 1927 – July 19, 1992) was an American researcher in computer science and cognitive psychology at the RAND Corporation and at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science, Tepper School of Business, and D ...

(1987) "Unified Theories of Cognition" * Roger N. Shepard (1994) "Mind and World: Principles of Perception" *

Ned Block Ned Joel Block (born 1942) is an American philosopher working in philosophy of mind who has made important contributions to the understanding of consciousness and the philosophy of cognitive science. He has been professor of philosophy and psychol ...

(2012) "How Empirical Facts About Attention Transform Traditional Philosophical Debates About the Nature of Perception"

Published versions of the lectures

*Austin, J.L. (1962). ''How to do things with words.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. *Ayer, A.J. (1971). ''Russell and Moore: The analytical heritage.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. *Broadbent, D.E. (1934). ''In defense of empirical psychology.'' London: Methuen. *Campbell, D.T. (1988). ''Methodology and epistemology for social science: Selected papers'' (E. Samuel Overman, Ed.). NY: Minton, Balch & Company. *Dewey, J. (1934). ''Art as experience.'' NY: Minton, Balch & Company. *Dummett, M. (1991). ''The logical basis of metaphysics.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. *Gilson, E. (1937). ''The unity of philosophical experience.'' NY: C. Scribner's Sons. *Goldstein, K. (1940). ''Human nature in the light of psychopathology.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. *Grice, H. P. (1989). ''Studies in the way of words.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. *Köhler, W. (1938). ''The place of value in a world of facts. '' NY: Liveright Publishing. *Lovejoy, A.O. (1934). ''The great chain of being: A study of the history of an idea.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press *Marcel, G. (1963). ''The existential background of human dignity.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. *Newell, A. (1990). ''Unified theories of cognition.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. *Russell, B. (1940). ''An inquiry into meaning and truth.'' NY: W.W. Norton. *Simon, H. (1979). ''Models of thought.'' New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. *Skinner, B.F. (1957). ''Verbal behavior.'' NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts. *Thorndike, E.L. (1943). ''Man and his works.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. *Wollheim, R. (1984). ''The thread of life.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

References

{{William James Pragmatism Philosophy events Psychology education William James 1930 establishments in Massachusetts Lecture series at Harvard University Recurring events established in 1930