Saul Kripke, born Saul Aaron Kripke in 1940 and died in 2022, was an American philosopher and logician who, while still a teenager, made foundational contributions to the semantics of modal logic and went on to become one of the most important analytic philosophers of the twentieth century. He is best known for a series of lectures published as the 1980 book Naming and Necessity, in which he argued that proper names function as rigid designators, referring to the same individual in every possible world in which that individual exists, a view he used to challenge the then-dominant descriptivist theory of reference and to argue for necessary truths that are known only through empirical investigation, such as the identity of water and H2O. Kripke's development of Kripke semantics for modal logic, his defense of essentialism, and his later work on rule-following and the private language argument in Wittgenstein's philosophy each had a lasting influence across logic, philosophy of language and metaphysics.
Facts
Defining MomentDelivered the 1970 Princeton lecture series published in 1980 as Naming and Necessity, introducing rigid designators and the causal theory of reference and reviving metaphysics and essentialism after the decline of logical positivism. 1 Notable PublicationNaming and Necessity (1980) 1 Office HeldDistinguished professor of philosophy, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, from 2003; professor emeritus, Princeton University 1 BirthplaceBay Shore, New York, United States 1 Death PlacePlainsboro, New Jersey, United States 1 Tradition
Tradition (category) FAQs
What did Kripke say about how words come to mean anything, in his book on Wittgenstein?
Kripke reads Wittgenstein as giving a skeptical argument about meaning and a solution that rests on agreement within a speech community.
In Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, published in 1982, Kripke presents Wittgenstein as proposing a skeptical argument against a certain conception of meaning and linguistic understanding, together with a skeptical solution to the problem it raises. On the solution Kripke attributes to Wittgenstein, we can legitimately say that a speaker means something specific by her words if we, as members of a speech community, can observe in enough cases that her use agrees with ours. Philosophers often call this reading Kripke's Wittgenstein or Kripkenstein, because Kripke himself stresses that it is the argument as it struck him, not necessarily as Wittgenstein would have put it.
Connections
In Branch
Source Saul Kripke (Wikipedia)
Source Saul Kripke (Wikipedia)
Source Saul Kripke (Wikipedia)
Source Saul Kripke (Wikipedia)
Source Saul Kripke (Wikipedia)
In Tradition
In the Other Atlases
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Source Saul Kripke (Wikipedia)Lead sentence 1tier 2Quote, Lead sentence 1
Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American philosopher and logician.
Sources
1. Saul Kripke (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIntroduction, opening sentence (birth date)
Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940, September 15, 2022) was an American philosopher and logician.
Biography > Death (year)
Kripke died of pancreatic cancer on September 15, 2022, in Plainsboro, New Jersey, at the age of 81.
Biography > Death (date)
Kripke died of pancreatic cancer on September 15, 2022, in Plainsboro, New Jersey, at the age of 81.
Biography > Death (place)
Kripke died of pancreatic cancer on September 15, 2022, in Plainsboro, New Jersey, at the age of 81.
Infobox, birth_place field
Bay Shore, New York, U.S.
Infobox, school_tradition field
Analytic philosophy
Introduction, paragraph 3
A 1970 Princeton lecture series, published in book form in 1980 as Naming and Necessity, is considered one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century.
Introduction, paragraph 3 (defining moment)
A 1970 Princeton lecture series, published in book form in 1980 as Naming and Necessity, is considered one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century. It introduced the concept of names as rigid designators.
Introduction, paragraph 1
He was a distinguished professor of philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a professor emeritus at Princeton University.
Introduction, opening sentence (birth year)
Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940, September 15, 2022) was an American philosopher and logician.
In Branch: Logic, Infobox: main_interests
Logic (particularly modal) Philosophy of language Metaphysics Set theory Epistemology Philosophy of mind History of analytic philosophy
In Branch: Philosophy of Language, Infobox: main_interests
Logic (particularly modal) Philosophy of language Metaphysics Set theory Epistemology Philosophy of mind History of analytic philosophy
In Branch: Metaphysics, Infobox: main_interests
Logic (particularly modal) Philosophy of language Metaphysics Set theory Epistemology Philosophy of mind History of analytic philosophy
In Branch: Epistemology, Infobox: main_interests
Logic (particularly modal) Philosophy of language Metaphysics Set theory Epistemology Philosophy of mind History of analytic philosophy
In Branch: Philosophy of Mind, Infobox: main_interests
Logic (particularly modal) Philosophy of language Metaphysics Set theory Epistemology Philosophy of mind History of analytic philosophy
In Group: Analytic Logic, Infobox: school_tradition
Analytic Scientific essentialism
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