# John Locke Lectures

The John Locke Lectures are a series of annual lectures in philosophy given at the University of Oxford. Named for British philosopher John Locke, the Locke Lectures are the world's most prestigious lectures in philosophy, and are among the world's most prestigious academic lectures. They were established in 1950 by the bequest of Henry Wilde. Another comparable lecture series is the Gifford Lectures, which are delivered annually at several universities in Scotland.
The first lecture series was offered to Ludwig Wittgenstein, who eventually declined. He felt uncomfortable giving formal lectures where the audience would not be asking or answering questions.

## Lecturers

The lectures began as an uncertain biennial series, with the first lecturer from 1950 to 1951, and missing the second slot from 1952 to 1953. Between 1969 and 2001, the lectures became gradually more frequent. Since 2001, the lecture notes have been made available electronically.
| Year | Lecturer | Lectures published as |
| 1950–1951 | Oets Kolk Bouwsma | |
| 1952–1953 | no lectures | no lectures |
| 1954–1955 | Hao Wang | |
| 1955–1956 | Arthur Prior | Time and Modality (1957) |
| 1957–1958 | A.C. Jackson |
| 1959–1960 | Gregory Vlastos | |
| 1961–1962 | Nelson Goodman | |
| 1963–1964 | Jaakko Hintikka | |
| 1965–1966 | Wilfrid Sellars | Science and Metaphysics |
| 1967–1968 | Paul Lorenzen | |
| 1968–1969 | Noam Chomsky | |
| 1969–1970 | Donald Davidson | On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme |
| 1971–1972 | Sydney Shoemaker | |
| 1973–1974 | Saul Kripke | Reference and Existence |
| 1974–1975 | Richard Brandt | |
| 1975–1976 | Hilary Putnam | |
| 1976–1977 | no lectures | no lectures |
| 1977–1978 | no lectures | no lectures |
| 1978–1979 | Paul Grice | Aspects of Reason |
| 1979–1980 | David Kaplan | |
| 1980–1981 | no lectures | no lectures |
| 1981–1982 | no lectures | no lectures |
| 1982–1983 | Daniel Dennett | Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting |
| 1983–1984 | David Lewis | |
| 1984–1985 | no lectures | no lectures |
| 1985–1986 | no lectures | no lectures |
| 1986–1987 | Barry Stroud | The Quest for Reality (2000) |
| 1987–1988 | no lectures | no lectures |
| 1988–1989 | no lectures | no lectures |
| 1989–1990 | Thomas Nagel | Equality and Partiality |
| 1990–1991 | John McDowell | Mind and World |
| Year | Lecturer | Lectures published as |
| 1991–1992 | Jonathan Bennett | |
| 1992–1993 | Tyler Burge | |
| 1993–1994 | no lectures | no lectures |
| 1994–1995 | Frank Jackson | From Metaphysics to Ethics |
| 1995–1996 | no lectures | no lectures |
| 1996–1997 | Jerry Fodor | Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong |
| 1996–1997 | Robert Nozick | Invariances (2001) |
| 1998 | Lawrence Sklar | |
| 1999 | no lectures | no lectures |
| 2000 | no lectures | no lectures |
| 2001 | Bas van Fraassen | |
| 2002 | Christine Korsgaard | Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, Integrity (2009) |
| 2003 | Kit Fine | Semantic Relationism (2007) |
| 2004 | Jonathan Barnes | Truth, etc. (2007) |
| 2005 | Ernest Sosa | A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume 1 (2007) |
| 2006 | Robert Brandom | Between Saying and Doing (2008) |
| 2007 | Robert Stalnaker | Our Knowledge of the Internal World (2008) |
| 2008 | Hartry Field | |
| 2009 | Thomas M. Scanlon | Being Realistic about Reasons (2013) |
| 2010 | David Chalmers | Constructing the World (2012) |
| 2011 | John Cooper | Ancient Greek Philosophies as a Way of Life |
| 2012 | Stephen Yablo | |
| 2013 | Ned Block | |
| 2014 | Martha Nussbaum | Anger and Forgiveness (2016) |
| 2015 | Rae Langton | |
| 2016 | Ted Sider |
| 2017 | Michael Smith |
| 2018 | Peter Railton |
| 2019 | Philip Pettit |
| 2020 | Susan Wolf |
| 2022 | Angelika Kratzer |
| 2023 | Jennifer Nagel |
| 2024 | Jonardon Ganeri |