Justus Hartnack (1912-2005) is regarded as the founder of the Department of Philosophy at Aarhus University in 1954, and served as professor at that department until 1972, where he continued his career in the USA. He was known as an extraordinarily talented lecturer – which thousands of university students taking the at the time compulsory Filosofikum course benefitted from – and as an inspiration to generations of Danish philosophers. An obituary (in Danish) can be found here.

About the Hartnack Lecture

On the occasion of his 90^th birthday, May 29 2002, the Annual Justus Hartnack Lecture was inaugurated in gratitude to his service, and to help preserve the international outlook that Hartnack gave to the Aarhus Philosophy Department from its beginning. The honour of giving the Annual Hartnack Lecture is given to an internationally recognized and distinguished researcher, who has made outstanding contributions in philosophy.

Past Hartnack Lecturers

• 2002: Simon Blackburn, Cambridge University
• 2003: John McDowell, University of Pittsburgh
• 2004: Jonathan Dancy, University of Reading
• 2005: Robert Pippin, University of Chicago
• 2006: Barbara Herman, University of California, Los Angeles
• 2007: Simon Critchley, New School for Social Research, New York City
• 2008: Axel Hutter, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
• 2009: Rainer Forst, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt a. M.
• 2010: Onora O'Neill, Cambridge University
• 2011: Stephen Darwall, Yale University
• 2012: Jonathan Lear, University of Chicago
• 2013: Nancy Cartwright, Universities of San Diego and Durham
• 2014: R. Jay Wallace, UC Berkeley
• 2015: Otavio Bueno, University of Miami
• 2016: Helen Steward, University of Leeds
• 2018: Dan Zahavi, University of Copenhagen & University of Oxford
• 2021: T.M. Scanlon, Harvard University
• 2022: Natalie Stoljar, McGill University
• 2023: Antti Kauppinen, Helsinki University