The Selfridge Lectures in Philosophy are made possible by the bequest of the late Charles W. MacFarlane, C.E. 1876, Ph.D. Freiburg 1893, LL.D. Lehigh 1922. Being deeply interested in philosophy and economics, Dr. Macfarlane left his entire estate to Lehigh University, directing that the income should be used to maintain the MacFarlane Professorship or Theoretic Economics and the Selfridge Professorship of Pure Philosophy. William Wilson Selfridge was the father of Mrs. MacFarlane. Beginning in 1984, the Department of Philosophy designated part of the income from the Selfridge Professorship as support for the Selfridge Lecture Series.
2024 Selfridge Lecture
The Original Sin of Analytical Philosophy
by Michael Della Rocca
Sterling Professor of Philosophy, Yale University
In this lecture, Professor Della Rocca examined five crucial and influential episodes from early analytical philosophy in which Frege, Russell, Moore, and others play key roles. In each episode, the debate is, he argued, structurally analogous to the debate over Cartesian mind-body interaction. In particular, he argued that just as the Cartesian position in the interaction debate turns on whether the Principle of Sufficient Reason (the PSR) is rejected—Descartes, the great (as will become apparent) anti-rationalist, rejects the PSR in this case—so too the seminal positions taken up by these early analytical philosophers turn on the anti-rationalist denial of the PSR. Further and perhaps disturbingly, these seminal positions are thus as problematic as the problematic Cartesian position with regard to mind-body interaction.
Past Selfridge Lecturers
- 2023 - Wendy Brown
- 2022 - Stephen Mulhall
- 2019 - Alan Brudner
- 2018 - Richard Campbell
- 2017 - Moshe Halbertal
- 2016 - Graham Priest
- 2015 - Thomas Hill, Jr.
- 2014 - Eckart Förster
- 2013 - Roger Ames
- 2012 - Scott Soames
- 2011 - William Wimsatt
- 2010 - Claudia Card
- 2009 - Stewart Shapiro
- 2008 - Kwame Anthony Appiah
- 2007 - Susan Wolf
- 2006 - Philip Kitcher
- 2005 - Joseph Margolis
- 2004 - Lucius Outlaw
- 2003 - Stanley Cavell
- 2002 - Jonathan Dollimore
- 2000 - Simon Blackburn
- 1999 - Christine Korsgaard
- 1998 - Edward Said
- 1997 - Elliott Sober
- 1996 - Jerry Fodor
- 1995 - Jean Francois Lyotard
- 1994 - Annette Baier
- 1993 - Lawrence May
- 1992 - Alexander Nehamas
- 1991 - Paul Churchland
- 1990 - WVO Quine
- 1989 - Don Ihde
- 1988 - Alison Jaggar
- 1987 - Daniel Dennett
- 1986 - Donald Davidson
- 1985 - Derek Parfit
- 1984 - Gilbert Harman