The William James Lectures
The William James Lectures were a series of invited lectureships at Harvard University sponsored by the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology, who alternated in the selection of speakers. The series was created in honor of the American Pragmatist philosopher William James, a former faculty member. It was endowed through a 1929 bequest from Edgar Pierce, a Harvard Alumnus, who also funded the prestigious Edgar Pierce Chair in Philosophy and Psychology.
Below is a list of in-print works in this collection, presented in series order or publication order as applicable.
Unified Theories of Cognition
After reviewing the foundational concepts of cognitive science—knowledge, representation, computation, symbols, architecture, intelligence, and search—Allen Newell introduces Soar, an architecture for general cognition. A pioneer system in artificial intelligence, Soar is the first problem solver to create its own subgoals and learn continuously from its own experience. Newell shows how Soar’s ability to operate within the real-time constraints of intelligent behavior, such as immediate-response and item-recognition tasks, illustrates important characteristics of the human cognitive structure.
The Logical Basis of Metaphysics
Michael Dummett’s new book is the greatly expanded and recently revised version of his distinguished William James Lectures, delivered in 1976. Dummett regards the construction of a satisfactory theory of meaning as the most pressing task of contemporary analytical philosophy. He believes that the successful completion of this difficult assignment will lead to a resolution of problems before which philosophy has been stalled, in some instances for centuries.
The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea
From later antiquity to the close of the 18th century, most educated men accepted without question a traditional view of the plan and structure of the world. In this volume, Lovejoy copiously illustrates the influence of this conception, and of the ideas out of which it was compounded, upon the imagination and feelings as expressed in literature.
How to Do Things with Words: Second Edition
John L. Austin was one of the leading philosophers of the twentieth century. The William James Lectures presented Austin’s conclusions in the field to which he directed his main efforts on a wide variety of philosophical problems. These talks became the classic How to Do Things with Words.