Saul Kripke

Saul Kripke
Name	Saul Kripke
Caption	Kripke in 2005
Birth date	13 November 1940
Birth place	Bay Shore, New York
Death date	15 September 2022
Death place	Plainsboro, New Jersey
Education	Harvard University (BA, 1962)
Institutions	Princeton University, City University of New York, University of Oxford
Main interests	Logic, Philosophy of language, Metaphysics, Philosophy of mind
Notable ideas	Kripke semantics, Causal theory of reference, Rigid designator, Kripkenstein
Awards	Rolf Schock Prize (2001)

Saul Kripke was an American philosopher and logician, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in analytic philosophy during the latter half of the 20th century. A prodigy who made significant contributions to modal logic while still a teenager, his later work, particularly the lectures published as Naming and Necessity, revolutionized the philosophy of language and metaphysics. His influential interpretations of Ludwig Wittgenstein and original arguments on topics like meaning, reference, and consciousness established him as a central thinker at institutions like Princeton University and the City University of New York.

Biography

Born in Bay Shore, New York, he demonstrated an extraordinary aptitude for mathematics and logic from a young age, mastering advanced topics like calculus and set theory as a child. He attended Harvard University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1962, and began teaching at Princeton University in the late 1960s, where he later held the prestigious James McCosh Professorship of Philosophy. After leaving Princeton University, he served as a distinguished professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center and was also a visiting professor at institutions like the University of Oxford. He was married to philosopher Margaret Gilbert.

Philosophical work

His early, groundbreaking work established the now-standard formal semantics for modal logic, known as Kripke semantics, which provided a rigorous model-theoretic framework using concepts from possible worlds and accessibility relations. This technical innovation in formal logic laid the foundation for his later philosophical explorations into metaphysical necessity and identity. Beyond modal logic, his philosophical contributions spanned the philosophy of language, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind, where he famously argued against the identity theory of mind and functionalism through his influential conceivability argument.

Naming and necessity

The series of lectures published as Naming and Necessity fundamentally challenged the dominant descriptivist theory of names associated with philosophers like Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell. He introduced the concept of a rigid designator, a term that refers to the same object in every possible world, and argued that proper names like Aristotle or Cicero are rigid, whereas descriptive phrases are not. He further developed the causal theory of reference, proposing that a name's reference is fixed by an initial "baptism" and then passed causally through a community, a view that separated the mechanisms of reference from those of sense.

Wittgenstein on rules and private language

In his later work Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, he offered a controversial and highly influential interpretation of the arguments in Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. He focused on the so-called "rule-following considerations," arguing they lead to a skeptical paradox about meaning and intention that challenges any fact-based account of what makes a speaker's application of a rule correct. This interpretation, which posits a skeptical solution rather than a straight solution, was so distinctive that the composite figure was often referred to in literature as "Kripkenstein."

Influence and legacy

His ideas have had a profound and lasting impact across multiple fields within analytic philosophy, reshaping debates in the philosophy of language, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind. The arguments from Naming and Necessity directly influenced subsequent work by major philosophers like Hilary Putnam, David Kaplan, and Tyler Burge, and became central to discussions of essentialism and natural kinds. His reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein continues to generate extensive scholarly debate and has influenced thinkers such as John McDowell and Crispin Wright.

Awards and honors

He received numerous prestigious accolades throughout his career, including the Rolf Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy in 2001, an award often considered the equivalent of a Nobel Prize for philosophy. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and held memberships in other learned societies. In 1985, he delivered the renowned John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford, a series later published as his work on Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Category:American logicians Category:American philosophers Category:20th-century philosophers