Saul Kripke's Contributions to the Philosophy of Language and Philosophy of Logic

Dear Colleagues,

The late Saul Kripke presents a unique case in the last 150 years of philosophy, even when compared to his own heroes, Free and Russell, as well as Quine and Wittgenstein (he wrote about all four of them). Even as other philosophers have certainly presented major contributions to philosophy, as well as claims to critiques of theories in the foundations of logic/mathematics, Kripke has the distinction of (1) refuting the theories of the fabulous four preceding him with no appeal (such refutations are rare in philosophy); (2) making innovative contributions in set theory and logic—straight mathematical theorems—that none of the foregoing even tried to generate (3); and exerting considerable influence over the last 50 years of philosophy, daring one to be a prophet in one’s own city, and leaving a unique and enduring legacy in the next 500 years to come. His doctrines in philosophy, be it on the notion of linguistic reference, the analysis of modal necessity, the understanding of natural kinds, or the falsehood of mind–body materialistic reductions, have been taken as “final”. We may add to this (4) the fundamental ideas he had in the (meta-)mathematics of arithmetic (the models of Peano Arithmetic), the notion of the constructive set (admissible sets, the Kripke–Platek set theory), his ideas of forcing and the intuitionistic model theory, and his possible world algebras for modal logics, which have all been distinctly perceptive—both mathematically simpler than competitor ideas and conceptually revelatory. Philosophers may not be aware of (4) while being aware of (1–3); therefore, this Special Issue aims to elucidate this corner further —a task typically difficult for non-technical philosophers—as well as present the Terra Firma of famous (1–3)-type contributions.

Please submit your papers by 10th September 2024 through our online submission system.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Prof. Dr. Joseph Almog
Guest Editor

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• philosophy
• the place of infinity in understanding nature
• philosophy of language and philosophy of logic