[UPDATED LOCATION] Whitehead Lectures: Miranda Fricker (New York University), "Bernard Williams’ Historical Self-Consciousness"

Lecture I: A Project of ‘Impure’ Enquiry—Descartes and Wittgenstein

Lecture II: ‘Philosophical Anthropology’—Hume and Nietzsche

Abstract: One of the dominant themes in Bernard Williams’ philosophy, especially his ethical philosophy, is the importance of history. This idea makes repeated appearances throughout his oeuvre, and in a number of different guises: one is the importance to philosophy of having a sense of itself as a contingently shaped way of making sense of life; another is the importance of observing the limits of speculative thinking so that we can refrain from a prioristic over-reach; and another is the importance of the History of Philosophy itself as a means to philosophy’s maintaining an instructive dialogue with its own past. In accordance with this historicist dialogical spirit, these lectures will trace a profile of Williams by observing the detailed impressions left on his writing by his engagement with, first, Descartes and Wittgenstein, and then Hume and Nietzsche.