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.
2026 Selfridge Lecture
What We Talk to When We Talk to Language Models
by David Chalmers
Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science (New York University)
What exactly are we talking to when we talk to a language models such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini? Do these models might have genuine minds with mental states? David Chalmers will argue that the LLMs we interact with are at least quasi-agents with quasi-beliefs and quasi-desires, in a sense I will explain. He will also argue that the LLM quasi-agents that we interact with are best understood not as abstract models or even as hardware instances but as virtual entities bound to conversation-based memory threads. Prof. Chalmers will draw some parallels with the TV show Severance.
Past Selfridge Lecturers
- 2025 - Peter Adamson
- 2024 - Michael Della Rocca
- 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