Executive Freedom in Descartes

Sir Anthony Kenny: Executive Freedom in Descartes 

Philosophy Department Cottingham Lecture

Sir Anthony Kenny was born in Liverpool in 1931 and was educated at Upholland College and the Pontifical Gregorian University. He was ordained priest in 1955 but returned to the lay state in 1963. Since then he has lived in Oxford. From 1963 to 1989 he was at Balliol College, Oxford, first as Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy, and then as Master of the College. Subsequently he became Warden of Rhodes House, President of the British Academy, and Chair of the Board of the British Library. He is the author of some forty books on philosophy and history, including the four volume New History of Western Philosophy published by Oxford University Press.

The Inaugural Cottingham Lecture is the first in an annual lecture series in honour of John Cottingham, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Reading. Professor Cottingham was for many years Head of Department and then Director of Research and Graduate Studies in the Department. He has published over thirty books on early-modern philosophy, moral philosophy and the philosophy of religion. From 1993-2012 he was editor of the journal Ratio. He is an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford.