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Saul Kripke

 
Saul Kripke

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Saul Kripke



 
 
Saul Aaron Kripke (born on November 13, 1940 in Bay Shore, New York
Bay Shore, New York

Bay Shore is a hamlet , located in the Political subdivisions of New York State#Town of Islip , New York, Political subdivisions of New York State#county of Suffolk County, New York, New York, United States....
) is an American philosopher
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
 and logic
Logic

Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and inference. Logic is a branch of philosophy, a part of the classical Trivium . The word derives from Greek language ?????? , fem....
ian, now emeritus
Emeritus

Emeritus is an adjective that is used in the title of a retired professor, bishop or other professional. Emerita was used for women, but is rarely used today....
 from Princeton
Princeton University

Princeton University is a private university university located in Princeton, New Jersey, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and has the largest per-student Financial endowment in the world....
. He teaches as distinguished professor of philosophy at CUNY Graduate Center
CUNY Graduate Center

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York is the sole doctorate-granting institution of the City University of New York....
. Since the 1960s Kripke has been a central figure in a number of fields related to logic
Logic

Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and inference. Logic is a branch of philosophy, a part of the classical Trivium . The word derives from Greek language ?????? , fem....
, philosophy of language
Philosophy of language

Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language for Analytic philosophys is concerned with four central problems: the nature of Meaning , language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language and reality....
, metaphysics
Metaphysics

Metaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics....
, epistemology
Epistemology

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. It addresses the questions:...
, and set theory
Set theory

Set theory is the branch of mathematics that studies Set , which are collections of objects. Although any type of object can be collected into a set, set theory is applied most often to objects that are relevant to mathematics....
. Much of his work remains unpublished or exists only as tape-recordings and privately circulated manuscripts (see "Unpublished Manuscripts and Online Lectures" below).






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Quotations


It really is a nice theory. The only defect I think it has is probably common to all philosophical theories. It's wrong.

Naming and Necessity (1980, p. 64)





Encyclopedia


Saul Aaron Kripke (born on November 13, 1940 in Bay Shore, New York
Bay Shore, New York

Bay Shore is a hamlet , located in the Political subdivisions of New York State#Town of Islip , New York, Political subdivisions of New York State#county of Suffolk County, New York, New York, United States....
) is an American philosopher
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
 and logic
Logic

Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and inference. Logic is a branch of philosophy, a part of the classical Trivium . The word derives from Greek language ?????? , fem....
ian, now emeritus
Emeritus

Emeritus is an adjective that is used in the title of a retired professor, bishop or other professional. Emerita was used for women, but is rarely used today....
 from Princeton
Princeton University

Princeton University is a private university university located in Princeton, New Jersey, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and has the largest per-student Financial endowment in the world....
. He teaches as distinguished professor of philosophy at CUNY Graduate Center
CUNY Graduate Center

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York is the sole doctorate-granting institution of the City University of New York....
. Since the 1960s Kripke has been a central figure in a number of fields related to logic
Logic

Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and inference. Logic is a branch of philosophy, a part of the classical Trivium . The word derives from Greek language ?????? , fem....
, philosophy of language
Philosophy of language

Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language for Analytic philosophys is concerned with four central problems: the nature of Meaning , language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language and reality....
, metaphysics
Metaphysics

Metaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics....
, epistemology
Epistemology

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. It addresses the questions:...
, and set theory
Set theory

Set theory is the branch of mathematics that studies Set , which are collections of objects. Although any type of object can be collected into a set, set theory is applied most often to objects that are relevant to mathematics....
. Much of his work remains unpublished or exists only as tape-recordings and privately circulated manuscripts (see "Unpublished Manuscripts and Online Lectures" below). Kripke was the recipient of the 2001 Schock Prize
Schock prize

The Rolf Schock Prizes were established and endowed by bequeath of philosopher and artist Rolf Schock . The prizes were first awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1993 and have been awarded every two years since....
 in Logic and Philosophy. He has received honorary degrees from the University of Nebraska, Omaha (1977), Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University

The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Hopkins or JHU, is a private university research university located in Baltimore, Maryland, Maryland, United States....
 (1997), University of Haifa
University of Haifa

The University of Haifa is a university in Haifa, Israel.About 16,500 undergraduate and graduate student students study in the university a wide variety of topics, specializing in social sciences, humanities, law and education....
, Israel (1998), and the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is America's first university and is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States....
 (2005). He is a member of the American Philosophical Society
American Philosophical Society

The American Philosophical Society is a discussion group founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin as an offshoot of his earlier club, the Junto....
. Kripke is also an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an organization dedicated to scholarship and the advancement of learning. It serves as a nationwide honor society for the United States....
 and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy
British Academy

The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established by Royal Charter in 1902, and is a fellowship of more than 800 scholars....
.

Biography

Saul Kripke is the eldest of three children born to Dorothy K. Kripke
Dorothy K. Kripke

Dorothy K. Kripke is a well known author of Jewish educational books. BiographyDorothy Kripke, a Jewish Theological Seminary graduate, rebbetzin and children's book author, is the mother of noted philosopher Saul A....
 and Rabbi
Rabbi

Rabbi , in Judaism, means a religious ?teacher?, or more literally, ?my great one?, when addressing any master. The word rabbi derives from the Hebrew root word , rav, which in biblical Hebrew means ?great?, used in many senses, including the sense of a ?master? and apprentice, whence someone who is a distinguished ?teacher?....
 Myer Kripke. His father was the leader of Beth El Synagogue, the only Conservative congregation in Omaha
Omaha

Omaha may refer to:*Omaha , a Native American tribe that currently resides in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Nebraska, and the direct or indirect source of all other things named "Omaha"...
, Nebraska
Nebraska

Nebraska is a U.S. state located on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States and Western United States.Nebraska probably gets its name from the archaic Chiwere language words ?? Br?sge or the Omaha-Ponca language N? Bth?ska meaning "flat water," after the Platte River that flows through the state....
. His mother wrote Jewish educational children's books. Saul and his two sisters, Madeline and Netta, attended Dundee Grade School in Omaha and Omaha Central High School
Omaha Central High School

for schools of the same name.Omaha Central High School, originally known as Omaha High School, is located at 124 North 20th Street in North Omaha, Nebraska....
. He wrote his first essay at the age of sixteen on the semantics
Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning in communication. The word is derived from the Greek language word s??a?t???? , "significant", from s??a??? , "to signify, to indicate" and that from s??a , "sign, mark, token"....
 of modal logic
Modal logic

A modal logic is any system of mathematical logic#Formal logic that attempts to deal with notions of possibility and necessity. Traditionally, there are three "modes" or "moods" or "modalities" of the Copula to be, namely, Logical possibility, probability, and Necessary_and_sufficient_conditions#Necessary_conditions....
s. After graduating from high school in 1958, Kripke attended Harvard University
Harvard University

Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher learning in the United States....
 and graduated summa cum laude obtaining a bachelor's degree in mathematics. He has no other non-honorary degrees. During his sophomore year at Harvard, Kripke taught a graduate-level logic course at nearby MIT. Upon graduation (1962) he received a Fulbright Fellowship. In 1963 he was appointed to the Society of Fellows. For some years he taught at Harvard, moved to Rockefeller University
Rockefeller University

The Rockefeller University is a private university which focuses primarily on basic research in the biomedical fields and offers graduate and postgraduate education....
 in New York City in 1967, then to Princeton University
Princeton University

Princeton University is a private university university located in Princeton, New Jersey, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and has the largest per-student Financial endowment in the world....
 full-time in 1977. In 1976 Kripke married (and in the '90s divorced) the philosopher Margaret Gilbert
Margaret Gilbert

Margaret Gilbert is a philosopher best known for her work in the philosophy of social science, and, more specifically, for her founding contributions to the analytic philosophy of social phenomena....
. In 1988 he received Princeton's Behrman Award for distinguished achievement in the humanities. In 2002 Kripke started teaching at the CUNY Graduate Center
CUNY Graduate Center

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York is the sole doctorate-granting institution of the City University of New York....
 in midtown Manhattan, and was appointed a distinguished professor of philosophy there in 2003.

Work


Kripke is best known for four contributions to philosophy:

  1. Kripke semantics
    Kripke semantics

    Kripke semantics is a formal semantics for non-classical logic systems created in the late 1950s and early 1960s by Saul Kripke, beginning when he was a teenager....
     for modal and related logics
    Modal logic

    A modal logic is any system of mathematical logic#Formal logic that attempts to deal with notions of possibility and necessity. Traditionally, there are three "modes" or "moods" or "modalities" of the Copula to be, namely, Logical possibility, probability, and Necessary_and_sufficient_conditions#Necessary_conditions....
    , published in several essays beginning while he was still in his teens.
  2. His 1970 Princeton lectures Naming and Necessity
    Naming and Necessity

    Naming and Necessity is a book by the philosopher Saul Kripke that was first published in 1980. The book is based on a transcript of three lectures given at Princeton University in 1970....
     (published in 1972 and 1980), that significantly restructured the philosophy of language
    Philosophy of language

    Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language for Analytic philosophys is concerned with four central problems: the nature of Meaning , language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language and reality....
     and, as some have put it, "made metaphysics respectable again".
  3. His interpretation of the philosophy of Wittgenstein.
  4. His theory of truth
    Truth

    semantic fields for the word truth extend from honesty, good faith, and sincerity in general, to agreement with fact or reality in particular....
    .


He has also contributed to set-theory (see admissible ordinal
Admissible ordinal

In set theory, an ordinal number a is an admissible ordinal if constructible universe is an admissible set ; in other words, a is admissible when a is a limit ordinal and La?S0-collection....
 and Kripke-Platek set theory)

Modal logic

Two of Kripke's earlier works ("A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic" and "Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic"), the former written while he was still a teenager, were on the subject of modal logic
Modal logic

A modal logic is any system of mathematical logic#Formal logic that attempts to deal with notions of possibility and necessity. Traditionally, there are three "modes" or "moods" or "modalities" of the Copula to be, namely, Logical possibility, probability, and Necessary_and_sufficient_conditions#Necessary_conditions....
. The most familiar logics in the modal family are constructed from a weak logic called K, named after Kripke for his contributions to modal logic. Kripke introduced the now-standard Kripke semantics
Kripke semantics

Kripke semantics is a formal semantics for non-classical logic systems created in the late 1950s and early 1960s by Saul Kripke, beginning when he was a teenager....
 (also known as relational semantics or frame semantics) for modal logics. Kripke semantics is a formal semantics for non-classical logic systems. It was first made for modal logics, and later adapted to intuitionistic logic and other non-classical systems. The discovery of Kripke semantics was a breakthrough in the making of non-classical logics, because the model theory of such logics was nonexistent before Kripke.

A Kripke frame or modal frame is a pair , where W is a non-empty set, and R is a binary relation
Binary relation

In mathematics, a binary relation is an arbitrary association of elements within a set or with elements of another set.An example is the "divides" relation between the set of prime numbers P and the set of integers Z, in which every prime p is associated with every integer z that is a divisibility of p, and no othe...
 on W. Elements of W are called nodes or worlds, and R is known as the accessibility relation
Accessibility relation

An accessibility relation is a binary relation between possible worlds which has very powerful uses in both the formal/theoretical aspects of modal logic as well as in its applications to things like epistemology, metaphysics, and value theory....
.

A Kripke model is a triple , where is a Kripke frame, and is a relation between nodes of W and modal formulas, such that:
  • if and only if ,
  • if and only if or ,
  • if and only if .
We read as “w satisfies A”, “A is satisfied in w”, or “w forces A”. The relation is called the satisfaction relation, evaluation, or forcing
Forcing (mathematics)

In the mathematical discipline of set theory, forcing is a technique invented by Paul Cohen for proving consistency and independence results. It was first used, in 1962, to prove the independence of the continuum hypothesis and the axiom of choice from Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory....
 relation
. The satisfaction relation is uniquely determined by its value on propositional variables.

A formula A is valid in:
  • a model , if for all w ? W,
  • a frame , if it is valid in for all possible choices of ,
  • a class C of frames or models, if it is valid in every member of C.
We define Thm(C) to be the set of all formulas that are valid in C. Conversely, if X is a set of formulas, let Mod(X) be the class of all frames which validate every formula from X.

A modal logic (i.e., a set of formulas) L is sound with respect to a class of frames C, if L ? Thm(C). L is complete wrt C if L ? Thm(C).

Semantics is useful for investigating a logic (i.e. a derivation system) only if the semantical entailment
Entailment

In logic and mathematics, entailment or logical implication is a logical relation that holds between a set T of propositions and a proposition B when every Model theory of T is also a model of B....
 relation reflects its syntactical counterpart, the consequence relation (derivability). It is vital to know which modal logics are sound and complete with respect to a class of Kripke frames, and for them, to determine which class it is.

For any class C of Kripke frames, Thm(C) is a normal modal logic
Normal modal logic

In logic, a normal modal logic is a set L of modal formulas such that L contains:* All propositional tautology ;* All instances of the Kripke schema: ...
 (in particular, theorems of the minimal normal modal logic, K, are valid in every Kripke model). However, the converse does not hold in general. There are Kripke incomplete normal modal logics, which is not a problem, because most of the modal systems studied are complete of classes of frames described by simple conditions.

A normal modal logic L corresponds to a class of frames C, if C = Mod(L). In other words, C is the largest class of frames such that L is sound wrt C. It follows that L is Kripke complete if and only if it is complete of its corresponding class.

Consider the schema T : . T is valid in any reflexive
Reflexive relation

In set theory, a binary relation can have, among other properties, reflexivity or irreflexivity.At least in this context, relation always means a subset of X ? X....
 frame : if , then since w R w. On the other hand, a frame which validates T has to be reflexive: fix w ? W, and define satisfaction of a propositional variable p as follows: if and only if w R u. Then , thus by T, which means w R w using the definition of . T corresponds to the class of reflexive Kripke frames.

It is often much easier to characterize the corresponding class of L than to prove its completeness, thus correspondence serves as a guide to completeness proofs. Correspondence is also used to show incompleteness of modal logics: suppose L1 ? L2 are normal modal logics that correspond to the same class of frames, but L1 does not prove all theorems of L2. Then L1 is Kripke incomplete. For example, the schema generates an incomplete logic, as it corresponds to the same class of frames as GL (viz. transitive and converse well-founded frames), but does not prove the GL-tautology .

For any normal modal logic L, a Kripke model (called the canonical model) can be constructed, which validates precisely the theorems of L, by an adaptation of the standard technique of using maximal consistent set
Maximal consistent set

In mathematics, a maximal consistent set is a Set of formula belonging to some formal language that satisfies the following constraints:* The set is consistency, that is, no formula is both provable and refutable....
s as models. Canonical Kripke models play a role similar to the Lindenbaum – Tarski algebra construction in algebraic semantics.

A set of formulas is L-consistent if no contradiction can be derived from them using the axioms of L, and Modus Ponens. A maximal L-consistent set (an L-MCS for short) is an L-consistent set which has no proper L-consistent superset.

The canonical model of L is a Kripke model , where W is the set of all L-MCS, and the relations R and are as follows:
if and only if for every formula , if then ,
if and only if .
The canonical model is a model of L, as every L-MCS contains all theorems of L. By Zorn's lemma
Zorn's lemma

Zorn's lemma, also known as the Kuratowski?Zorn lemma, is a proposition of set theory that states:Every partially ordered set in which every Total order has an upper bound contains at least one maximal element....
, each L-consistent set is contained in an L-MCS, in particular every formula unprovable in L has a counterexample in the canonical model.

The main application of canonical models are completeness proofs. Properties of the canonical model of K immediately imply completeness of K with respect to the class of all Kripke frames. This argument does not work for arbitrary L, because there is no guarantee that the underlying frame of the canonical model satisfies the frame conditions of L.

We say that a formula or a set X of formulas is canonical with respect to a property P of Kripke frames, if
  • X is valid in every frame which satisfies P,
  • for any normal modal logic L which contains X, the underlying frame of the canonical model of L satisfies P.
A union of canonical sets of formulas is itself canonical. It follows from the preceding discussion that any logic axiomatized by a canonical set of formulas is Kripke complete, and compact
Compactness theorem

In mathematical logic, the compactness theorem states that a set of first-order predicate calculus sentences has a model theory, iff every finite subset of it has a model....
.

The axioms T, 4, D, B, 5, H, G (and thus any combination of them) are canonical. GL and Grz are not canonical, because they are not compact. The axiom M by itself is not canonical (Goldblatt, 1991), but the combined logic S4.1 (in fact, even K4.1) is canonical.

In general, it is undecidable
Decision problem

In computability theory and computational complexity theory, a decision problem is a question in some formal system with a yes-or-no answer, depending on the values of some input parameters....
 whether a given axiom is canonical. We know a nice sufficient condition: H. Sahlqvist identified a broad class of formulas (now called Sahlqvist formula
Sahlqvist formula

In modal logic, Sahlqvist formulae are a certain kind of modal formula with remarkable properties. The Sahlqvist correspondence theorem states that every...
s) such that
  • a Sahlqvist formula is canonical,
  • the class of frames corresponding to a Sahlqvist formula is first-order
    First-order logic

    First-order logic is a formal deductive system used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. It goes by many names, including: first-order predicate calculus , the lower predicate calculus, the language of first-order logic or predicate logic....
     definable,
  • there is an algorithm which computes the corresponding frame condition to a given Sahlqvist formula.
This is a powerful criterion: for example, all axioms listed above as canonical are (equivalent to) Sahlqvist formulas. A logic has the finite model property (FMP) if it is complete with respect to a class of finite frames. An application of this notion is the decidability question: it follows from Post's theorem that a recursively axiomatized modal logic L which has FMP is decidable, provided it is decidable whether a given finite frame is a model of L. In particular, every finitely axiomatizable logic with FMP is decidable.

There are various methods for establishing FMP for a given logic. Refinements and extensions of the canonical model construction often work, using tools such as filtration or unravelling. As another possibility, completeness proofs based on cut-free sequent calculi usually produce finite models directly.

Most of the modal systems used in practice (including all listed above) have FMP.

In some cases, we can use FMP to prove Kripke completeness of a logic: every normal modal logic is complete wrt a class of modal algebras, and a finite modal algebra can be transformed into a Kripke frame. As an example, Robert Bull proved using this method that every normal extension of S4.3 has FMP, and is Kripke complete.

Kripke semantics has a straightforward generalization to logics with more than one modality. A Kripke frame for a language with as the set of its necessity operators consists of a non-empty set W equipped with binary relations Ri for each i ? I. The definition of a satisfaction relation is modified as follows:

if and only if


A simplified semantics, discovered by Tim Carlson, is often used for polymodal provability logic
Provability logic

Provability logic is a modal logic, in which the box operator is interpreted as 'it is provable that'. The point is to capture the notion of a proof predicate of a reasonably rich formal theory, such as Peano arithmetic....
s. A Carlson model is a structure with a single accessibility relation R, and subsets Di ? W for each modality. Satisfaction is defined as

if and only if


Carlson models are easier to visualize and to work with than usual polymodal Kripke models; there are, however, Kripke complete polymodal logics which are Carlson incomplete.

In "Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic", published in 1963, Kripke responded to a difficulty with classical quantification theory. The motivation for the world-relative approach was to represent the possibility that objects in one world may fail to exist in another. If standard quantifier rules are used, however, every term must refer to something that exists in all the possible worlds. This seems incompatible with our ordinary practice of using terms to refer to things that exist contingently.

Kripke's response to this difficulty was to eliminate terms. He gave an example of a system that uses the world-relative interpretation and preserves the classical rules. However, the costs are severe. First, his language is artificially impoverished, and second, the rules for the propositional modal logic must be weakened.

Kripke's possible worlds theory has been used by narratologists (beginning with Pavel and Dolezel) to understand "reader's manipulation of alternative plot developments, or the characters' planned or fantasized alternative action series" (Fludernik). It has become especially useful in the analysis of hyperfiction.

Intuitionistic Logic


Kripke semantics for the intuitionistic logic
Intuitionistic logic

Intuitionistic logic, or constructivist logic, is the symbolic logic system originally developed by Arend Heyting to provide a formal basis for Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer's programme of intuitionism....
 follows the same principles as the semantics of modal logic, but it uses a different definition of satisfaction.

An intuitionistic Kripke model is a triple , where is a partially ordered
Partially ordered set

In mathematics, especially order theory, a partially ordered set formalizes the intuitive concept of an ordering, sequencing, or arrangement of the elements of a Set ....
 Kripke frame, and satisfies the following conditions:
  • if p is a propositional variable, , and , then (persistency condition),
  • if and only if and ,
  • if and only if or ,
  • if and only if for all , implies ,
  • not .


Intuitionistic logic is sound and complete with respect to its Kripke semantics, and it has FMP.

Intuitionistic first-order logic

Let L be a first-order
First-order logic

First-order logic is a formal deductive system used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. It goes by many names, including: first-order predicate calculus , the lower predicate calculus, the language of first-order logic or predicate logic....
 language. A Kripke model of L is a triple , where is an intuitionistic Kripke frame, Mw is a (classical) L-structure for each node w ? W, and the following compatibility conditions hold whenever u = v:
  • the domain of Mu is included in the domain of Mv,
  • realizations of function symbols in Mu and Mv agree on elements of Mu,
  • for each n-ary predicate P and elements a1,…,an ? Mu: if P(a1,…,an) holds in Mu, then it holds in Mv.
Given an evaluation e of variables by elements of Mw, we define the satisfaction relation :
  • if and only if holds in Mw,
  • if and only if and ,
  • if and only if or ,
  • if and only if for all , implies ,
  • not ,
  • if and only if there exists an such that ,
  • if and only if for every and every , .
Here e(x?a) is the evaluation which gives x the value a, and otherwise agrees with e.

Naming and necessity

Kripke's three lectures constitute an attack on descriptivist theories of proper names. Kripke attributes variants of descriptivist theories to Frege
Gottlob Frege

Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege was a Germany mathematics who became a logician and philosophy. He helped found both modern mathematical logic and analytic philosophy....
, Russell
Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, Order of Merit , Fellow of the Royal Society , was a British people philosopher, mathematical logic, mathematician, historian, advocate for social reform, and pacifism....
, Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-United Kingdom philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language....
 and John Searle
John Searle

John Rogers Searle is an American philosopher and the Slusser Professor of Philosophy and Mills Professor of Philosophy of Mind and Language at the University of California, Berkeley ....
, among others. According to descriptivist theories, proper names either are synonymous with descriptions, or have their reference determined by virtue of the name's being associated with a description or cluster of descriptions that an object uniquely satisfies. Kripke rejects both these kinds of descriptivism. He gives several examples purporting to render descriptivism
Descriptivist theory of names

Descriptivist theory of names is a view of the nature of the meaning and reference of proper names generally attributed to Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell....
 implausible as a theory of how names get their reference determined (e.g., surely Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
 could have died at age two and so not satisfied any of the descriptions we associate with his name, and yet it would seem wrong to deny that he was Aristotle). As an alternative, Kripke adumbrated a causal theory of reference, according to which a name refers to an object by virtue of a causal connection with the object as mediated through communities of speakers. Kripke holds that the meaning of a name simply is the object it refers to. To show this, he points out that proper names, in contrast to most descriptions, are rigid designators: A proper name refers to the named object in every possible world
Possible Worlds

Possible Worlds may refer to:* Possible worlds, a concept in philosophy* Possible Worlds , by John Mighton** Possible Worlds , by Robert Lepage, based on the Mighton play...
 in which the object exists, while most descriptions designate different objects in different possible worlds. For example, 'Nixon' refers to the same person in every possible world in which Nixon exists, while 'the person who won the United States presidential election of 1968'
United States presidential election, 1968

The United States presidential election of 1968 was a wrenching national experience, conducted against a backdrop that included the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr....
 could refer to Nixon
Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States and the only president to resign the office....
, Humphrey, or others in different possible worlds.

Causal theories of reference have also been elaborated and developed by Michael Devitt
Michael Devitt

Michael Devitt is an Australian philosopher currently teaching at the City University of New York in New York, NY. His primary interests include philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics and epistemology....
, Keith Donnellan
Keith Donnellan

Keith Donnellan is a contemporary philosopher and Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has made important contributions to the philosophy of language, most notably to the analysis of proper names and definite descriptions....
, David Kaplan
David Kaplan

'David Kaplan' is the name of:* Dave Kaplan, an American Mixed Martial Artist* David Kaplan , an American philosopher* David Kaplan * David Kaplan , journalist for U.S....
, Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam

Hilary Whitehall Putnam is an American philosopher who has been a central figure in analytic philosophy since the 1960s, especially in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science....
, Nathan Salmon
Nathan Salmon

Nathan U. Salmon is an American philosophy in the analytic philosophy tradition, specializing in philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophy of logic....
, Scott Soames
Scott Soames

Scott Soames is a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. He specializes in the philosophy of language and the history of analytic philosophy....
, Gareth Evans
Gareth Evans

Gareth Evans may refer to:* Gareth Evans , philosopher at Oxford University and student of Michael Dummett* Gareth Evans , former Australian politician and head of the International Crisis Group...
, and others, and are perhaps more widely held than descriptivist theories now. Notable holdouts include John Searle
John Searle

John Rogers Searle is an American philosopher and the Slusser Professor of Philosophy and Mills Professor of Philosophy of Mind and Language at the University of California, Berkeley ....
, Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty

Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse career in Philosophy, Humanities, and Literature departments. His complex intellectual background gave him a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the analytic philosophy tradition in philosophy he would later famously reject....
, and Alonzo Church
Alonzo Church

Alonzo Church was an United States mathematician and list of logicians who made major contributions to mathematical logic and the foundations of theoretical computer science....
; also notable is the fact that Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam

Hilary Whitehall Putnam is an American philosopher who has been a central figure in analytic philosophy since the 1960s, especially in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science....
 has drawn back from such a completely causal account.

Kripke also raised the prospect of a posteriori
A Posteriori

A Posteriori is the title of the musical project Enigma 's sixth studio album, released in September 2006. In December 2006, the album was nominated in the Grammy Award for Best New Age Album category in the Grammy Awards of 2007....
 necessities
Modality

Modality can refer to:...
 — facts that are necessarily true, though they can be known only through empirical investigation. Examples include “Hesperus
Hesperus

In Greek mythology, Hesperus , the Evening Star is the son of the dawn goddess Eos and brother of Eosphorus , the Morning Star....
 is Phosphorus
Phosphorus

Phosphorus is the chemical element that has the symbol P and atomic number 15. The name comes from the and . A Valency nonmetal of the nitrogen group, phosphorus is commonly found in inorganic phosphate minerals....
”, “Cicero
Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Ancient Rome philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Constitution of the Roman Republic. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest rhetoric and prose stylists....
 is Tully
Tully

Tully is a surname, and may refer to* R. Brent Tully, an astronomer* Charlie Tully* George Tully , carpenter and surveyor* James Tully , various, including...
”, “Water is H2O” and other identity claims where two names refer to the same object.

Finally, Kripke gave an argument against identity materialism
Physicalism

Physicalism is a philosophical position holding that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties; that is, that there are no kinds of things other than physical things....
 in the philosophy of mind
Philosophy of mind

Philosophy of mind is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental property, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain....
, the view that every mental fact is identical with some physical fact (See talk). Kripke argued that the only way to defend this identity is as an a posteriori necessary identity, but that such an identity — e.g., pain is C-fibers firing — could not be necessary, given the possibility of pain that has nothing to do with C-fibers firing. Similar arguments have been proposed by David Chalmers
David Chalmers

David John Chalmers is an Australian philosopher specializing in the area of philosophy of mind. He is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University....
.

Kripke delivered the John Locke lectures
John Locke lectures

The John Locke Lectures are a series of annual lectures in philosophy given at the University of Oxford. They are one of the world's most prestigious academic lecture series, comparable to the Gifford Lectures given in Scotland universities....
 in philosophy at Oxford
Oxford

Oxford is a City status in the United Kingdom, and the county town of Oxfordshire, in South East England. It has a population of 151,000. The rivers River Cherwell and River Thames run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre....
 in 1973. Titled Reference and Existence, they are in many respects a continuation of Naming and Necessity, and deal with the subjects of fictional names and perceptual error. They have never been published and the transcript is officially available only in a reading copy in the university philosophy library, which cannot be copied or cited without Kripke's permission. In fact many copies are informally circulated among philosophers. Its influence, though considerable, is thus difficult to trace. However, it has been extensively referred to by some philosophers, particularly Gareth Evans
Gareth Evans (philosopher)

Gareth Evans was a United Kingdom philosopher....
 and Nathan Salmon
Nathan Salmon

Nathan U. Salmon is an American philosophy in the analytic philosophy tradition, specializing in philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophy of logic....
.

In a 1995 paper, philosopher Quentin Smith
Quentin Smith

Quentin Smith is an United States contemporary philosophy philosopher, scholar and professor of philosophy at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Michigan....
 argued that key concepts in Kripke's new theory of reference had originated from the work of Ruth Barcan Marcus
Ruth Barcan Marcus

Ruth Barcan Marcus is the United States philosopher and logician after whom the Barcan formula is named. She is a pioneering figure in the quantification of modal logic and the Direct reference theory....
 more than a decade earlier. Smith identified six significant ideas to the New Theory which he claimed that Marcus had developed: (1) The idea that proper names are direct references, which don't consist of contained definitions. (2) While one can single out a single thing by a description, this description is not equivalent with a proper name of this thing. (3) The modal argument that proper names are directly referential, and not disguised descriptions. (4) A formal modal logic proof of the necessity of identity. (5) The concept of a rigid designator
Rigid designator

In modal logic and the philosophy of language, a term is said to be a rigid designator when it designates the same thing in all possible worlds in which that thing exists and does not designate anything else in those possible worlds in which that thing does not exist....
, although the actual name of the concept was coined by Kripke. (6) The idea of a posteriori identity. Smith proceeded to argue that Kripke failed to understand Marcus' theory at the time, yet later adopted many of its key conceptual themes in his New Theory of Reference. Several scholars have subsequently offered detailed responses arguing that no plagiarism occurred..

A Puzzle about Belief


Kripke’s main propositions in Naming and Necessity concerning proper names are, that the meaning of a name simply is the object it refers to, and that a name’s referent is determined by a causal link between some sort of “baptism” and the utterance of the name. Nevertheless he acknowledges the possibility that propositions containing names may have some additional semantic properties, properties that could explain why two names referring to the same person may give different truth values in propositions about beliefs. (Lois Lane believes that Superman can fly, although she does not believe that Clark Kent can fly. This can be accounted for if the names “Superman” and “Clark Kent”, though referring to the same person, have distinct semantic properties.)

In the article “A Puzzle about Belief” Kripke seems to oppose even this possibility. His argument can be reconstructed in the following way: The idea that two names referring to the same object may have different semantic properties, is supposed to explain that coreferring names behave differently in propositions about beliefs. (Like in Lois Lane's case.) But the same phenomenon occurs even with coreferring names that obviously have the same semantic properties:

Kripke invites us to imagine a French, monolingual boy, Pierre, who believes the following: “Londres est jolie.” (“London is beautiful.”) Pierre moves to London without realising that London = Londres. He then learns English the same way a child would learn the language, that is, not by translating words from French to English. Pierre learns the name “London” from the unattractive part of the city he lives in, so he comes to believe that London is not beautiful. If Kripke’s account is correct Pierre now believes both that London is beautiful and that London is not beautiful. This cannot be explained by coreferring names having different semantic properties. According to Kripke, this shows that attributing additional semantic properties to names, will not explain what it is supposed to explain.

Wittgenstein


Saul Kripke
Saul Kripke

Saul Aaron Kripke is an American philosophy and logician, now emeritus from Princeton University. He teaches as distinguished professor of philosophy at CUNY Graduate Center....
's Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language is arguably the most influential and widely discussed interpretation of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
Philosophical Investigations

Philosophical Investigations is, along with the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, one of the two major works by 20th-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein....
. First published in 1982, the book contends that the central argument of the Philosophical Investigations centers on a devastating rule-following paradox that undermines the possibility of us ever following rules in our use of language. Kripke writes that this paradox is "the most radical and original skeptical problem that philosophy has seen to date" (p. 60). Kripke argues that Wittgenstein does not reject the argument that leads to the rule-following paradox, but accepts it and offers a 'skeptical solution' to ameliorate the paradox's destructive effects. Whilst most commentators accept that the Philosophical Investigations contains the rule-following paradox as Kripke presents it, few have concurred in attributing Kripke's skeptical solution to Wittgenstein. It should be noted that Kripke himself expresses doubts in Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language as to whether Wittgenstein would endorse his interpretation of the Philosophical Investigations. He says that the work should not be read as an attempt to give an accurate statement of Wittgenstein's views, but rather as an account of Wittgenstein's argument "as it struck Kripke, as it presented a problem for him" (p. 5). The portmanteau "Kripkenstein
Kripkenstein

Saul Kripke's Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language is the most influential and widely discussed interpretation of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations....
" has been coined as a jesting nickname for Kripke's reading of the Philosophical Investigations.

(For alternative readings of Wittgenstein, see Colin McGinn
Colin McGinn

Colin McGinn is a United Kingdom philosopher currently working at the University of Miami. McGinn has also held major teaching positions at Oxford University and Rutgers University....
's Wittgenstein on Meaning.) The real significance of "Kripkenstein
Kripkenstein

Saul Kripke's Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language is the most influential and widely discussed interpretation of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations....
" was to put forward a clear statement of a new kind of scepticism, dubbed "meaning scepticism", which is the idea that for an isolated individual there is no fact in virtue of which he/she means one thing rather than another by the use of a word. Kripke's "sceptical solution" to meaning scepticism is to ground meaning in the behaviour of a community. Kripke's book generated a large secondary literature, divided between those who find his sceptical problem interesting and perceptive, and others (such as Gordon Baker and Peter Hacker
Peter Hacker

Peter Michael Stephan Hacker is a British philosopher.His principal expertise is in the philosophy of mind andphilosophy of language. He is well known for his detailed...
) who argue that his meaning scepticism is a pseudo-problem that stems from a confused, selective reading of Wittgenstein. Kripke's position has recently been defended against these and other attacks by the Cambridge philosopher Martin Kusch
Martin Kusch

Martin Kusch is Professor of Philosophy and Sociology of science at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University....
 (2006).

Truth


In his 1975 article "Outline of a Theory of Truth", Kripke showed that a language can consistently contain its own truth
Truth

semantic fields for the word truth extend from honesty, good faith, and sincerity in general, to agreement with fact or reality in particular....
 predicate, which was deemed impossible by Alfred Tarski
Alfred Tarski

Alfred Tarski was a Poles logician and mathematician. Educated in the Warsaw School of Mathematics and philosophy, he emigrated to the USA in 1939, and taught and did research in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1942 until his death....
, a pioneer in the area of formal theories of truth. The trick involves letting truth be a partially defined property over the set of grammatically well-formed sentences in the language. Kripke showed how to do this recursively by starting from the set of expressions in a language which do not contain the truth predicate, defining a truth predicate over just that segment: this adds new sentences to the language, and truth is in turn defined for all of them. Unlike Tarski's approach, however, Kripke's lets "truth" be the union of all of these definition-stages; after a denumerable infinity of steps the language reaches a "fixed point" such that using Kripke's method to expand the truth-predicate does not change the language any further. Such a fixed point can then be taken as the basic form of a natural language containing its own truth predicate. But this predicate is undefined for any sentences that do not, so to speak, "bottom out" in simpler sentences not containing a truth predicate. That is, " 'Snow is white' is true" is well-defined, as is " ' "Snow is white" is true' is true," and so forth, but neither "This sentence is true" nor "This sentence is not true" receive truth-conditions; they are, in Kripke's terms, "ungrounded."

Meaning of "I"


In late January 2006, Kripke attended a conference celebrating his 65th birthday and work at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and delivered a 70-minute talk on "The First Person", discussing the meaning and reference of the pronoun "I".

Religious views


Kripke is a devoutly religious Jew. Additionally, in an interview with Andreas Saugstad, he stated "I don't have the prejudices many have today, I don't believe in a naturalist world view. I don't base my thinking on prejudices or a world view and do not believe in materialism."

Publications


  • 1959. "A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic", Journal of Symbolic Logic 24(1):1–14.
  • 1962. "The Undecidability of Monadic Modal Quantification Theory", Zeitschrift für Mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik 8:113–116
  • 1963. "Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic", Acta Philosophica Fennica 16:83–94
  • 1963. "Semantical Analysis of Modal Logic I: Normal Modal Propositional Calculi", Zeitschrift für Mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik 9:67–96
  • 1964. "Transfinite Recursions on Admissible Ordinals, I" (abstract), The Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 29, No. 3, p. 162.
  • 1964. "Transfinite Recursions on Admissible Ordinals, II" (abstract), The Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 29, No. 3, p. 162.
  • 1964. "Admissible Ordinals and the Analytic Hierarchy" (abstract), The Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 29, No. 3, p. 162.
  • 1965. "Semantical Analysis of Intuitionistic Logic I", In Formal Systems and Recursive Functions, edited by M. Dummett and J. N. Crossley. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co.
  • 1965. "Semantical Analysis of Modal Logic II: Non-Normal Modal Propositional Calculi", In The Theory of Models, edited by J. W. Addison, L. Henkin and A. Tarski. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co.
  • 1967. "An Extension of a Theorem of Gaifman-Hales-Solovay," Fundamenta Mathematicae, Vol. 61, pp. 29-32.
  • 1971. "Identity and Necessity", In Identity and Individuation, edited by M. K. Munitz. New York: New York University Press.
  • 1972 (1980). "Naming and Necessity", In Semantics of Natural Language, edited by D. Davidson and G. Harman. Dordrecht; Boston: Reidel. Sets out the causal theory of reference
    Causal theory of reference

    A causal theory of reference is any of a family of views about how terms acquire specific reference. Such theories have been used to describe reference in regard to all sorts of reference-bearing terms, particularly logically proper names and natural kind terms....
    .
  • 1975. "Outline of a Theory of Truth", Journal of Philosophy 72:690–716. Sets his theory of truth (against Alfred Tarski), where an object language can contain its own truth predicate.
  • 1976. "Is There a Problem about Substitutional Quantification?", In Truth and Meaning: Essays in Semantics, edited by Gareth Evans and John McDowell. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • 1976. "A Theory of Truth I. Preliminary Report," abstract, Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 556.
  • 1976. "A Theory of Truth II. Preliminary Report," abstract, Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 556-557.
  • 1977. "Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference", Midwest Studies in Philosophy 2:255–276.
  • 1979. "A Puzzle about Belief", In Meaning and Use, edited by A. Margalit. Dordrecht and Boston: Reidel.
  • 1980. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-59845-8 and reprints 1972.
  • 1982. Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: an Elementary Exposition. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-95401-7. Sets out his interpretation of Wittgenstein aka Kripkenstein
    Kripkenstein

    Saul Kripke's Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language is the most influential and widely discussed interpretation of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations....
    .
  • 1982. "Nonstandard Models of Peano Arithmetic" (with S. Kochen), in Logic and Algorithmics: International Symposium Held in Honor of Ernst Specker, H. Lauchli (ed.), University of Geneva: 277-295.
  • 1986. “A Problem in the Theory of Reference: the Linguistic Division of Labor and the Social Character of Naming,” Philosophy and Culture (Proceedings of the XVIIth World Congress of Philosophy), Montreal, Editions Montmorency: 241-247.
  • 1992. “Summary: Individual Concepts: Their Logic, Philosophy, and Some of Their Uses.” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 66: 70-73
  • 2005. "Russell's Notion of Scope", Mind 114:1005–1037
  • 2008. "Frege’s Theory of Sense and Reference: Some Exegetical Notes,” Theoria 74:181-218


Unpublished Manuscripts and Online Lectures


  • 1971. "Two Paradoxes of Knowledge" (Delivered at the Moral Sciences Club, Cambridge. Transcribed by Elizabeth Anscombe. Some of its ideas are discussed by Thomas Kelly:
http://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/papers/Beliefpolarizationfinal.pdf )

  • 1973. “Vacuous Names and Fictional Entities” (Transcribed by Sam Wheeler and John Troyer)


  • 1973. John Locke Lectures: "Reference and Existence". (Transcript available in the Philosophy Library, Oxford University)


  • 1975. "Three Lectures on Truth". Princeton University. Discussed by John Burgess: http://www.princeton.edu/~jburgess/Kripke2.doc (see section 9: "Glimpses Beyond")


  • 1978. "Time and Identity". Seminar given at Princeton University, 1978. Several versions of this material have circulated. Some of its ideas are discussed by Ted Sider in his book Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time


  • 19- "Non-Standard Models and Godel's Theorem: A Model-Theoretic Proof of Godel's Theorem". Summary by Hilary Putnam
    Hilary Putnam

    Hilary Whitehall Putnam is an American philosopher who has been a central figure in analytic philosophy since the 1960s, especially in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science....
     available at:
http://projecteuclid.org/DPubS/Repository/1.0/Disseminate?view=body&id=pdf_1&handle=euclid.ndjfl/1027953483 )

  • 1984. "Lessons on Functionalism and Automata". (Delivered at the International Wittgenstein Symposium, 1984. Transcribed by Roderick Chisholm
    Roderick Chisholm

    Roderick M. Chisholm was an United States philosophy known for his work on epistemology, metaphysics, free will, and the philosophy of perception....
    . Its main ideas are discussed by Edward P. Stabler: http://www.springerlink.com/content/lr745776l7g24u63/


  • 1986. "Nozick on Knowledge". (Manuscript. You can find a discussion of its main ideas at: http://sammelpunkt.philo.at:8080/1493/1/adams.pdf )


  • 1986. “Rigid Designation and the Contingent A Priori: The Meter Stick Revisited” (Notre Dame, 1986) Transcript by


  • 1988/89. "Seminars on Truth". Three-semester seminar at Princeton in 1988-89, only the first two semesters have been transcribed by Jim Cain. See John Burgess http://www.princeton.edu/~jburgess/Kripke2.doc (footnote 16)


  • 19- "Semantical Analysis of Intuitionistic Logic II. Undecidability of the Monadic Fragment" (Undated manuscript)


  • 19- "Semantical Analysis of Intuitionistic Logic III" (Undated manuscript)


  • 1989. "No Fool's Red? Some Considerations on the Primary/Secondary Quality Distinction"(includes comments by David Velleman). University of Michigan, 1989.


  • 1990. "Presupposition and Anaphora". (Delivered at the Interdisciplinary Conference on Linguistic and Philosophical Approaches to the Study of Anaphora, Princeton University, 1990. Transcribed by Richard Holton, Michaelis Michael, and Scott Soames
    Scott Soames

    Scott Soames is a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. He specializes in the philosophy of language and the history of analytic philosophy....
    )


  • 1992. Whitehead Lectures: "Logicism, Wittgenstein, and De Re Beliefs about Natural Numbers". Delivered at Harvard University, 1992.


  • 1992. "Individual Concepts: Their Logic, Philosophy, and Some of Their Uses". Transcribed by Stephen Webb.


  • 1996. "Elementary Recursion Theory and its Applications to Formal Systems." Transcribed by Mario Gomez Torrente and John Barker. Index available at: http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:y-DdYr9dhj8J:www.phil.uu.nl/~jjoosten/krip/notes/pschomps/Kripke-Frontmatter.ps+saul+kripke+the+road+to+godel&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5


  • 1999. "The Road to Gödel". (Read at Haifa University, Israel, 1999. Several transcripts exist.


  • 2006. "The First Person" The City University of New York, Graduate Center. The videos "The First Person" and "Questions and Answers" are available at: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/Philosophy/events/kripke_conference.html


  • 2006. "From Church's Thesis to the First Order Algorithm Theorem," Tel Aviv University, June 13, 2006. Video available at: http://www.vanleer.org.il/eng/videoShow.asp?id=317
Abstract available here: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=788022.789011

  • 2007. "Roundtable on Externalism" (Hilary Putnam
    Hilary Putnam

    Hilary Whitehall Putnam is an American philosopher who has been a central figure in analytic philosophy since the 1960s, especially in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science....
    , Tyler Burge
    Tyler Burge

    Tyler Burge is a Professor of Philosophy at UCLA. He has made contributions to several areas of philosophy, including the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and the history of philosophy....
    , Saul Kripke, and Michael Devitt
    Michael Devitt

    Michael Devitt is an Australian philosopher currently teaching at the City University of New York in New York, NY. His primary interests include philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics and epistemology....
    ). University College Dublin, Ireland. Podcast available at: http://www.ucd.ie/news/mar07/030507_Putnam_Award.htm


  • 2007. "The Collapse of the Hilbert Program". Indiana University, Presidential Lecture. Video available at: http://broadcast.iu.edu/ceremon/celeb07/index.html


  • 2008. "Unrestricted Exportation and Some Morals for the Philosophy of Language," The City University of New York, Graduate Center, May 21, 2008. Podcast available here: http://www1.cuny.edu/portal_ur/news/radio/podcast/lecture_143.mp3


Interviews and Articles


  • "New Frontiers in American Philosophy" by Taylor Branch, New York Times Magazine, August 14, 1977.


  • "Saul Kripke, Genius Logician." Interview by Andreas Saugstad, February 25, 2001.


  • "Celebrating CUNY's Genius Philosopher" by Gary Shapiro,The New York Sun, January 27, 2006.


  • "Philosopher, 65, Lectures Not About 'What Am I?' but 'What Is I?'" by Charles McGrath, The New York Times
    The New York Times

    The New York Times is an American daily newspaper published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"?named for its staid appearance and style?is regarded as a national newspaper of record....
    , January 28, 2006.

Awards and Recognitions


  • Fulbright Scholar (1962-1963)
  • Society of Fellows, Harvard University
    Harvard University

    Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher learning in the United States....
     (1963-1966).
  • Doctor of Humane Letters, honorary degree, University of Nebraska, 1977.
  • Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
    American Academy of Arts and Sciences

    The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an organization dedicated to scholarship and the advancement of learning. It serves as a nationwide honor society for the United States....
     (1978--).
  • Corresponding Fellow, British Academy
    British Academy

    The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established by Royal Charter in 1902, and is a fellowship of more than 800 scholars....
     (1985--).
  • Howard Behrman Award, Princeton University
    Princeton University

    Princeton University is a private university university located in Princeton, New Jersey, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and has the largest per-student Financial endowment in the world....
    , 1988.
  • Fellow, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea (1993--).
  • Doctor of Humane Letters, honorary degree, Johns Hopkins University
    Johns Hopkins University

    The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Hopkins or JHU, is a private university research university located in Baltimore, Maryland, Maryland, United States....
    , 1997.
  • Doctor of Humane Letters, honorary degree, University of Haifa
    University of Haifa

    The University of Haifa is a university in Haifa, Israel.About 16,500 undergraduate and graduate student students study in the university a wide variety of topics, specializing in social sciences, humanities, law and education....
    , Israel, 1998.
  • Fellow, Norwegian Academy of Sciences (2000--).
  • Schock Prize
    Schock prize

    The Rolf Schock Prizes were established and endowed by bequeath of philosopher and artist Rolf Schock . The prizes were first awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1993 and have been awarded every two years since....
     in Logic and Philosophy, Swedish Academy of Sciences, 2001.
  • Doctor of Humane Letters, honorary degree, University of Pennsylvania
    University of Pennsylvania

    The University of Pennsylvania is a private research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is America's first university and is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States....
    , 2005.
  • Fellow, American Philosophical Society
    American Philosophical Society

    The American Philosophical Society is a discussion group founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin as an offshoot of his earlier club, the Junto....
     (2005--).

Literature about Kripke


  • Taylor Branch (1977), "New Frontiers in American Philosophy: Saul Kripke". New York Times Magazine.
  • Consuelo Preti (2002), On Kripke. Wadsworth. ISBN 0534583660
  • Scott Soames (2002), Beyond Rigidity: The Unfinished Semantic Agenda of Naming and Necessity. ISBN 0-19-514529-1.
  • Christopher Hughes (2004), Kripke : Names, Necessity, and Identity. ISBN 0-19-824107-0.
  • G.W. Fitch (2005), Saul Kripke. ISBN 0-7735-2885-7.
  • Martin Kusch (2006), A sceptical Guide to Meaning and Rules. Defending Kripke's Wittgenstein. Acumben: Publishing Limited.
  • Arif Ahmed (2007), Saul Kripke. New York, NY; London: Continuum. ISBN 0826492622.
  • Christopher Norris (2007), Fiction, Philosophy and Literary Theory: Will the Real Saul Kripke Please Stand Up? London: Continuum


See also

  • Kripke structure
    Kripke structure

    A Kripke structure is a type of nondeterministic finite state machine proposed by Saul Kripke in 1963, used in model checking to represent the behaviour of a system....


External links

  • A short, non-technical interview by Andreas Saugstad, February 25, 2001.
  • with a video of his speech "The First Person", January 25-26, 2006
  • June 13, 2006.
  • May 21, 2008.
  • , by Gary Shapiro, January 27, 2006, in The New York Sun.