‘Origins of the A-B Theory Debate and G. E. Moore’: The 14th Gavin David Young Lecture in Philosophy

The Department of Philosophy at the University of Adelaide presents the 14^th Gavin David Young Lecture in Philosophy, presented by Associate Professor Emily Thomas (Durham) on ‘Origins of the A-B Theory Debate and G. E. Moore’.

The lecture will consider the murky early twentieth century origins of the ongoing philosophical debate over the reality of time and tense. A/Prof Thomas locates the main cleavages in the dispute as arising from the fertile philosophical exchanges between philosophers in Cambridge including Bertrand Russell, J M E McTaggart, Henry Sidgwick and – the focus of the lecture – G E Moore. The lecture is suitable for a general audience and will capture both the significance of the philosophical debate and something of the revolutionary atmosphere in Cambridge philosophy of the time.

Emily Thomas is Associate Professor in Philosophy at Durham University in the UK, and an Honorary Fellow at the ACU Dianoia Institute of Philosophy . Her scholarly research has focussed on space and time in the history of philosophy, from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, and on early modern women metaphysicians. She is also committed to bringing philosophy to audiences outside the academy, notably through her popular book The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad , and through popular articles, podcasts, and radio. She tweets regularly about philosophy at @emilytwrites.