History

These lectures owe their existence to a bequest made by Jessie Frances Raven in memory of her father, the late Gavin David Young. The lectures were reestablished and refreshed with new rules in 2022, and lectures given since then are published in this journal. Details of lectures given in the original series can be found below.

The Original Series of Lectures

Details of the original series of lectures and their subsequent publication history, where known, follow below.

  1. Gilbert Ryle, Thinking, 1956.
  2. Willard Van Orman Quine, Terms and Objects, 1959. Quine’s lectures were subsequently published in W V O Quine (1960) Word and Object. MIT Press.
  3. Antony Flew, The Presuppositions of Immortality, 1963.
  4. Herbert Feigl, Towards a Philosophy for Our Age of Science, 1965.
  5. Donald Davidson, Agency and Causality, 1968. Davidson’s lectures were based on drafts of material subsequently published in Donald Davidson (1980) Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford University Press.
  6. David Lewis, The Paradoxes of Time Travel, 1971. An abridged version of these lectures were published as David Lewis (1976) ‘The Paradoxes of Time Travel’, American Philosophical Quarterly 13: 145–52. The full lectures were published in David Lewis (2022) Philosophical Manuscripts, Frederique Janssen-Lauret and Fraser Macbride, eds. Oxford University Press.
  7. Carl G Hempel, Science and Rationality: Analytics vs Pragmatic Perspectives, 1979. The manuscript of Hempel’s lectures are in Series 3, Subseries 5 of the Carl Gustav Hempel Papers, 1903-1997, ASP.1999.01, Archives of Scientific Philosophy, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System.
  8. Daniel C Dennett, Conscious Experience and Intentionality, 1984. Dennett’s lectures were subsequently published in Daniel Dennett (1987) The Intentional Stance. MIT Press.
  9. J J C Smart, Our Place in the Universe, 1987. Smart’s lectures were subsequently published as J J C Smart (1989) Our Place in the Universe. Blackwell.
  10. Hilary Putnam, Mind and Body, 1998. There are audio recordings of Putnam’s lectures; another version of ‘Non-Scientific Knowledge’.
  11. Simon Blackburn, Truth, Ethics, History, and Philosophy and the University, 2007.
  12. Frank Jackson, Philosophy for Representationalists, 2012.

Gavin David Young

Gavin David Young (1825–1881) Portrait of Gavin David Youngarrived in South Australia in 1848 not long after the founding of the colony. He took up land at Mintaro with his brothers, and was afterwards in business at Watervale. Upon the opening of the Wallaroo Mines in 1860 he was appointed Superintendent, and acted in that capacity for some time. His role in the Yorke Penninsula copper miners strike of 1864 is documented in Peter Bell (1998) ‘The power of respectful remonstrance: the Wallaroo and Moonta miners’ strike of 1864’, Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia 26: 55–68. He travelled to England in 1867, but returned to reside in Adelaide in 1871, where he was a Director of the Mercantile Marine Insurance Company, the Bank of South Australia, and the Wallaroo and Moonta Mining Companies until returning to England again in 1878. He died in Pau, France, after a long illness. The lectures were established in his memory by his only daughter, Jessie Frances Raven, who bequeathed £3000 to the University on her death in 1924.