Patrick Suppes
Encyclopedia
Patrick Colonel Suppes is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 philosopher who has made significant contributions to philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...

, the theory of measurement
Measurement
Measurement is the process or the result of determining the ratio of a physical quantity, such as a length, time, temperature etc., to a unit of measurement, such as the metre, second or degree Celsius...

, the foundations of quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...

, decision theory
Decision theory
Decision theory in economics, psychology, philosophy, mathematics, and statistics is concerned with identifying the values, uncertainties and other issues relevant in a given decision, its rationality, and the resulting optimal decision...

, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

, and educational technology
Educational technology
Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources." The term educational technology is often associated with, and encompasses, instructional theory and...

. He is currently the Lucie Stern Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the Stanford University School of Education
Stanford University School of Education
The Stanford University School of Education , is one of the seven schools of Stanford University. It is the second-oldest school of education in the United States, after NYU...

.

Early life and career

Suppes was born on March 17, 1922, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He grew up as an only child, later with a half brother George who was born in 1943 after Patrick had entered the army. His grandfather, C.E. Suppes, had moved to Oklahoma from Ohio. Suppes' father and grandfather were independent oil men. His mother died when he was a young boy. He was raised by his stepmother, who married his father before he was six years old. His parents did not have much formal education.

Suppes began college at the University of Oklahoma
University of Oklahoma
The University of Oklahoma is a coeducational public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two became the state of Oklahoma. the university had 29,931 students enrolled, most located at its...

 in 1939, but transferred to the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 in his second year, citing boredom with intellectual life in Oklahoma as his primary motivation. In his third year, at the insistence of his family, Suppes attended the University of Tulsa
University of Tulsa
The University of Tulsa is a private university awarding bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. It is currently ranked 75th among doctoral degree granting universities in the nation by US News and World Report and is listed as one of the "Best 366 Colleges" by...

, majoring in physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

, before entering the Army Reserves in 1942. In 1943 he returned to the University of Chicago and graduated with a B.S. in meteorology
Meteorology
Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...

, and was stationed shortly thereafter at the Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...

 to serve during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

He was discharged from the Army Air Force
United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces was the military aviation arm of the United States of America during and immediately after World War II, and the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force....

 in 1946.

In January 1947, he entered Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 as a graduate student in philosophy as a student of Ernest Nagel
Ernest Nagel
Ernest Nagel was a Czech-American philosopher of science. Along with Rudolf Carnap, Hans Reichenbach, and Carl Hempel, he is sometimes seen as one of the major figures of the logical positivist movement....

 and received a PhD
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 in 1950.

In 1952 he went to Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

, and from 1959 to 1992 he was the director of the Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences (IMSSS). (He was later to become the Lucie Stern Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Stanford)

Computer Aided Learning

In the 1960s, Suppes and Richard C. Atkinson
Richard C. Atkinson
Richard Chatham Atkinson is an American professor of psychology and academic administrator. He is the former president and regent of the University of California system, and former chancellor of U.C...

 (the future president of the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

) conducted experiments in using computers to teach math and reading to schoolchildren in the Palo Alto
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...

 area. Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth
Education Program for Gifted Youth
The Education Program for Gifted Youth, at Stanford University, is a gifted education program which offers distance and residential summer courses for students of all ages. It is a distance learning program, meaning that courses are taught remotely via the Internet, rather than in the traditional...

 and Computer Curriculum Corporation (CCC, now named Pearson Education Technologies) is an indirect descendant of those early experiments. At Stanford, Suppes was instrumental in encouraging the development of high-technology companies that were springing up in the field of educational software up into the 1990s, (such as Bien Logic
Bien Logic
Bien Logic, Inc. was one of the first interactive marketing agencies based in San Diego, California. In the mid-1990s it was also the largest such company. It pioneered several innovations in web development and internet software industry. Throughout the years 1993 to 1997, over 80 professionals...

).

One computer used in Suppes and Atkinson's Computer-assisted Instruction (CAI) experiments was the specialized IBM 1500
IBM 1500
The IBM 1500 instructional system was introduced by IBM on March 31, 1966 and its primary purpose was to implement Computer Assisted Instruction . Based around either an IBM 1130 or an IBM 1800 computer, it supported up to 32 student work stations each with a variety of audiovisual...

 Instructional System. Seeded by a research grant in 1964 from the U.S. Department of Education to the Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences at Stanford University, the IBM 1500 CAI system was initially prototyped at the Brentwood Elementary School (Ravenswood City School District) in East Palo Alto, California
East Palo Alto, California
East Palo Alto is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States.-Overview:As of the 2010 census, the population of East Palo Alto was 28,155. It is situated on the San Francisco Peninsula, roughly halfway between the cities of San Francisco and San Jose...

 by Suppes. The students first used the system in 1966.

Decision Theory

During the 1950s and 1960s Suppes collaborated with Donald Davidson
Donald Davidson (philosopher)
Donald Herbert Davidson was an American philosopher born in Springfield, Massachusetts, who served as Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley from 1981 to 2003 after having also held teaching appointments at Stanford University, Rockefeller University, Princeton...

 on decision theory
Decision theory
Decision theory in economics, psychology, philosophy, mathematics, and statistics is concerned with identifying the values, uncertainties and other issues relevant in a given decision, its rationality, and the resulting optimal decision...

, at Stanford. Their initial work followed lines of thinking which had been anticipated in 1926 by Frank P. Ramsey
Frank P. Ramsey
Frank Plumpton Ramsey was a British mathematician who, in addition to mathematics, made significant and precocious contributions in philosophy and economics before his death at the age of 26...

, and involved experimental testing of their theories, culminating in the 1957 monograph Decision Making: An Experimental Approach. Such commentators as Kirk Ludwig trace the origins of Davidson's theory of radical interpretation
Radical interpretation
Radical interpretation is interpretation of a speaker, including attributing beliefs and desires to them and meanings to their words, from scratch—that is, without relying on translators, dictionaries, or specific prior knowledge of their mental states. The term was introduced by American...

 to his formative work with Suppes.

Awards and honors

  • In 1965 he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences for his work on mathematical psychology.
  • On November 13, 1990, President George H. W. Bush
    George H. W. Bush
    George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

     awarded Suppes with the prestigious President's National Medal of Science
    National Medal of Science
    The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...

     for work in Behavioral and Social Science.
  • In 1994 he was inducted as a Fellow
    Fellow
    A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...

     of the Association for Computing Machinery
    Association for Computing Machinery
    The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...

    . He is the laureate of the 2003 Lakatos Award
    Lakatos Award
    The Lakatos Award is given annually for a contribution to the philosophy of science which is widely interpreted as outstanding. The contribution must be in the form of a book published in English during the previous six years....

     for his contributions to the philosophy of science.
  • He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
    Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
    The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway.-History:The University of Oslo was established in 1811. The idea of a learned society in Christiania surfaced for the first time in 1841. The city of Throndhjem had no university, but had a learned...

    .

See also

  • American philosophy
    American philosophy
    American philosophy is the philosophical activity or output of Americans, both within the United States and abroad. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that while American philosophy lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevertheless be seen as both reflecting and...

  • Richard C. Atkinson
    Richard C. Atkinson
    Richard Chatham Atkinson is an American professor of psychology and academic administrator. He is the former president and regent of the University of California system, and former chancellor of U.C...

  • Nancy Cartwright (philosopher)
    Nancy Cartwright (philosopher)
    Nancy Cartwright FBA is a professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics and the University of California at San Diego, and a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship...

  • Frederick Suppe
    Frederick Suppe
    Frederick Suppe is a professor Emeritus of philosophy at the University of Maryland. He has prominent work in the philosophy of science including much work with the semantic view of theories...

  • List of American philosophers

External links

  • Suppes on Computer Chronicles TV program. "Computer Chronicles
    Computer Chronicles
    The Computer Chronicles was a US television series, broadcast during 1981-2002 on Public Broadcasting Service public television, which documented the rise of the personal computer from its infancy to the immense market at the turn of the century...

    : Computers In Education (1984): An early look at how computers are being used in formal education. Guests include Professor Patrick Suppes of Stanford University and Glenn Kleiman, author of 'Brave New Schools'. Includes demonstrations of the LOGO and BASIC languages. Guest host is Herb Lechner of SRI International."
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