This article needs attention from an expert on the subject. Please add a reason or a talk parameter to this template to explain the issue with the article. WikiProject Logic may be able to help recruit an expert. (January 2011)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2009)

Saul Kripke

Born	(1940-11-13) November 13, 1940 (age 71) Bay Shore, New York
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Analytic
Main interests	Logic (particularly modal) Philosophy of language Metaphysics Set Theory Epistemology Philosophy of mind History of analytic philosophy
Notable ideas	Kripke–Platek set theory Causal theory of reference Kripkenstein Admissible ordinal Kripke structure Rigid designator Kripke semantics
Influenced by Frege · Curry · Lewis · Russell · Tarski · Wittgenstein · Quine
Influenced Boghossian · Burge · Chalmers · Devitt · Evans · Field · Kaplan · Putnam · Salmon · Soames · Weinstein · Yablo

Saul Aaron Kripke (born November 13, 1940) is an American philosopher and logician. He is a professor emeritus at Princeton and teaches as a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center. Since the 1960s Kripke has been a central figure in a number of fields related to mathematical logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, metaphysics, epistemology, and set theory. Much of his work remains unpublished or exists only as tape-recordings and privately circulated manuscripts. Kripke was the recipient of the 2001 Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy. A recent poll conducted among philosophers ranked Kripke among the top ten most important philosophers of the past 200 years.^[1]

Kripke has made influential and original contributions to logic, especially modal logic, since he was a teenager. Unusual for a professional philosopher, his only degree is an undergraduate degree from Harvard, in mathematics. His work has profoundly influenced analytic philosophy, with his principal contribution being a semantics for modal logic, involving possible worlds as described in a system now called Kripke semantics.^[2] Another of his most important contributions is his argument that necessity is a 'metaphysical' notion, which should be separated from the epistemic notion of a priori, and that there are necessary a posteriori truths, such as "Water is H₂O." He has also contributed an original reading of Wittgenstein, referred to as "Kripkenstein." His most famous work is Naming and Necessity (1980).

Biography[link]

Saul Kripke is the oldest of three children born to Dorothy K. Kripke and Rabbi Myer S. Kripke.^[3] His father was the leader of Beth El Synagogue, the only Conservative congregation in Omaha, Nebraska, while his mother wrote educational Jewish books for children. Saul and his two sisters, Madeline and Netta, attended Dundee Grade School and Omaha Central High School. Kripke was labelled a prodigy, having taught himself Ancient Hebrew by the age of six, read the complete works of Shakespeare by nine, and mastered the works of Descartes and complex mathematical problems before graduating elementary school.^[4][5] He wrote his first completeness theorem in modal logic at the age of 17, and had it published a year later. After graduating from high school in 1958, Kripke attended Harvard University and graduated summa cum laude obtaining a bachelor's degree in mathematics. During his sophomore year at Harvard, Kripke taught a graduate-level logic course at nearby MIT. Upon graduation (1962) he received a Fulbright Fellowship, and in 1963 was appointed to the Society of Fellows.

After teaching briefly at Harvard, he moved to Rockefeller University in New York City in 1967, and then received a full-time position at Princeton University in 1977. In 1988 he received the university's Behrman Award for distinguished achievement in the humanities. In 2002 Kripke began teaching at the CUNY Graduate Center in midtown Manhattan, and was appointed a distinguished professor of philosophy there in 2003. He was married to philosopher Margaret Gilbert.

He has received honorary degrees from the University of Nebraska, Omaha (1977), Johns Hopkins University (1997), University of Haifa, Israel (1998), and the University of Pennsylvania (2005). He is a member of the American Philosophical Society, an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He won the Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy in 2001.

He is uncle of the notable television writer, director, and producer Eric Kripke.

Work[link]

Kripke models for modal logic systems

Kripke's contributions to philosophy include:

1. Kripke semantics for modal and related logics, published in several essays beginning while he was still in his teens.
2. His 1970 Princeton lectures Naming and Necessity (published in 1972 and 1980), that significantly restructured philosophy of language.
3. His interpretation of Wittgenstein.
4. His theory of truth.

He has also contributed to set-theory (see admissible ordinal and Kripke-Platek set theory)

Modal logic[link]

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. 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 (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 absent prior to Kripke.

A Kripke frame or modal frame is a pair Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle W,R\rangle , where W is a non-empty set, and R is a binary relation on W. Elements of W are called nodes or worlds, and R is known as the accessibility relation. Depending on the properties of the accessibility relation (transitivity, reflexivity, etc.), the corresponding frame is described, by extension, as being transitive, reflexive, etc.

A Kripke model is a triple Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle W,R,\Vdash\rangle , where Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle W,R\rangle

is a Kripke frame, and Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Vdash
is a relation between nodes of W and modal formulas, such that:

• Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash\neg A

if and only if Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\nVdash A

,

• Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash A\to B

if and only if Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\nVdash A
or Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash B

,

• Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash\Box A

if and only if Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \forall u\,(w\; R\; u \to u\Vdash A)

.

We read Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash A

as “w satisfies A”, “A is satisfied in w”, or “w forces A”. The relation Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Vdash
is called the satisfaction relation, evaluation, or forcing relation. The satisfaction relation is uniquely determined by its value on propositional variables.

A formula A is valid in:

• a model Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle W,R,\Vdash\rangle

, if Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash A

for all w ∈ W,

• a frame Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle W,R\rangle

, if it is valid in Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle W,R,\Vdash\rangle

for all possible choices of Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Vdash

,

• 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 with respect to C if L ⊇ Thm(C).

Semantics is useful for investigating a logic (i.e. a derivation system) only if the semantical entailment 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 (in particular, theorems of the minimal normal modal logic, K, are valid in every Kripke model). However, the converse does not hold generally. There are Kripke incomplete normal modal logics, which is unproblematic, 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 : Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Box A\to A . T is valid in any reflexive frame Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle W,R\rangle

if Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash \Box A

, then Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash A

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: Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): u\Vdash p
if and only if w R u. Then Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash \Box p

, thus Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash p

by T, which means w R w using the definition of Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Vdash

. 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 Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Box(A\equiv\Box A)\to\Box A

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 Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Box A\to\Box\Box A

.

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 sets 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 Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle W,R,\Vdash\rangle , where W is the set of all L-MCS, and the relations R and Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Vdash

are as follows:

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): X\;R\;Y

if and only if for every formula Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): A

, if Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Box A\in X

then Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): A\in Y

,

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): X\Vdash A

if and only if Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): A\in X

.

The canonical model is a model of L, as every L-MCS contains all theorems of L. By Zorn's lemma, 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.

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 whether a given axiom is canonical. We know a nice sufficient condition: H. Sahlqvist identified a broad class of formulas (now called Sahlqvist formulas) such that:

• a Sahlqvist formula is canonical,
• the class of frames corresponding to a Sahlqvist formula is first-order 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 Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \{\Box_i\mid\,i\in I\}

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:

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash\Box_i A

if and only if Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \forall u\,(w\;R_i\;u\Rightarrow u\Vdash A).

A simplified semantics, discovered by Tim Carlson, is often used for polymodal provability logics. A Carlson model is a structure Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle W,R,\{D_i\}_{i\in I},\Vdash\rangle

with a single accessibility relation R, and subsets Di ⊆ W for each modality. Satisfaction is defined as:

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash\Box_i A

if and only if Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \forall u\in D_i\,(w\;R\;u\Rightarrow u\Vdash A).

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," has become especially useful in the analysis of hyperfiction.^[6]

Intuitionistic logic[link]

Kripke semantics for the intuitionistic logic follows the same principles as the semantics of modal logic, but uses a different definition of satisfaction.

An intuitionistic Kripke model is a triple Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle W,\le,\Vdash\rangle , where Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle W,\le\rangle

is a partially ordered Kripke frame, and Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \Vdash
satisfies the following conditions:

• if p is a propositional variable, Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\le u

, and Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash p , then Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): u\Vdash p

(persistency condition),

• Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash A\land B

if and only if Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash A
and Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash B

,

• Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash A\lor B

if and only if Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash A
or Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash B

,

• Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash A\to B

if and only if for all Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): u\ge w

, Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): u\Vdash A

implies Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): u\Vdash B

,

• not Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash\bot

.

Intuitionistic logic is sound and complete with respect to its Kripke semantics, and it has the Finite Model Property.

Intuitionistic first-order logic

Let L be a first-order language. A Kripke model of L is a triple Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle W,\le,\{M_w\}_{w\in W}\rangle , where Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle W,\le\rangle

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 M_u is included in the domain of M_v,
• realizations of function symbols in M_u and M_v agree on elements of M_u,
• for each n-ary predicate P and elements a₁,…,a_n ∈ M_u: if P(a₁,…,a_n) holds in M_u, then it holds in M_v.

Given an evaluation e of variables by elements of M_w, we define the satisfaction relation Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash A[e]

• Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash P(t_1,\dots,t_n)[e]

if and only if Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): P(t_1[e],\dots,t_n[e])
holds in Mw,

• Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash(A\land B)[e]

if and only if Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash A[e]
and Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash B[e]

,

• Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash(A\lor B)[e]

if and only if Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash A[e]
or Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash B[e]

,

• Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash(A\to B)[e]

if and only if for all Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): u\ge w

, Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): u\Vdash A[e]

implies Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): u\Vdash B[e]

,

• not Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash\bot[e]

,

• Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash(\exists x\,A)[e]

if and only if there exists an Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): a\in M_w
such that Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash A[e(x\to a)]

,

• Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): w\Vdash(\forall x\,A)[e]

if and only if for every Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): u\ge w
and every Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): a\in M_u

, Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): u\Vdash A[e(x\to a)] . Here e(x→a) is the evaluation which gives x the value a, and otherwise agrees with e.

[edit] Naming and Necessity

The three lectures that form Naming and Necessity constitute an attack on descriptivist theory of names. Kripke attributes variants of descriptivist theories to Frege, Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, 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 implausible as a theory of how names get their references determined (e.g., surely Aristotle 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 outlined 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. He points out that proper names, in contrast to most descriptions, are rigid designators. That is, a proper name refers to the named object in every possible world 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' could refer to Nixon, Humphrey, or others in different possible worlds.

Kripke also raised the prospect of a posteriori necessities^{[disambiguation needed ]} — facts that are necessarily true, though they can be known only through empirical investigation. Examples include “Hesperus is Phosphorus”, “Cicero is Tully”, “Water is H₂O” and other identity claims where two names refer to the same object.

Finally, Kripke gave an argument against identity materialism in the philosophy of mind, the view that every mental fact is identical with some physical fact. 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.^[7]

Kripke delivered the John Locke lectures in philosophy at Oxford 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 a 1995 paper, philosopher Quentin Smith argued that key concepts in Kripke's new theory of reference had originated from the work of Ruth Barcan Marcus more than a decade earlier.^[8] Smith identified six significant ideas to the New Theory that he claimed 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, though 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.

Other scholars have subsequently offered detailed responses arguing that no plagiarism occurred.^[9]

"A Puzzle about Belief"[link]

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,^[10] properties that could explain why two names referring to the same person may give different truth values in propositions about beliefs. For example, 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 (as 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 joli.” (“London is beautiful.”) Pierre moves to London without realizing 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 in which he lives, so he comes to believe that London is not beautiful. If Kripke’s account is correct, Pierre now believes both that "Londres" is "joli" and that "London" is not beautiful. This cannot be explained by coreferring names having different semantic properties. According to Kripke, this demonstrates that attributing additional semantic properties to names does not explain what it is intended to prove.

Wittgenstein[link]

First published in 1982, Kripke's Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language contends that the central argument of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations centers on a devastating rule-following paradox that undermines the possibility of our 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^{[citation needed]} accept that the Philosophical Investigations contains the rule-following paradox as Kripke presents it, few have concurred with Kripke when he attributes a 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" has been coined as a jesting nickname for Kripke's reading of the Philosophical Investigations. The real significance of "Kripkenstein" was to put forward a clear statement of a new kind of skepticism, dubbed "meaning skepticism", 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 "skeptical solution" to meaning skepticism is to ground meaning in the behavior of a community.

Kripke's book generated a large secondary literature,^{[citation needed]} divided between those who find his skeptical problem interesting and perceptive, and others, such as Gordon Baker and Peter Hacker, who argue that his meaning skepticism is a pseudo-problem that stems from a confused, selective reading of Wittgenstein. Kripke's position has, however recently been defended against these and other attacks by the Cambridge philosopher Martin Kusch (2006), and Wittgenstein scholar David G. Stern considers the book to be "the most influential and widely discussed" work on Wittgenstein since the 1980s.^[11]

Truth[link]

This section only describes one highly specialized aspect of its associated subject. Please help improve this article by adding more general information. The talk page may contain suggestions. (October 2009)

In his 1975 article "Outline of a Theory of Truth", Kripke showed that a language can consistently contain its own truth predicate, which was deemed impossible by Alfred Tarski, a pioneer in the area of formal theories of truth. The approach 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, and defining a truth predicate over just that segment: this action 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."

Religious views[link]

Kripke is an observant Jew.^[12] Discussing how his religious views influenced his philosophical views (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."^[13]

Awards and recognitions[link]

• Fulbright Scholar (1962–1963)
• Society of Fellows, Harvard University (1963–1966).
• Doctor of Humane Letters, honorary degree, University of Nebraska, 1977.
• Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1978–).
• Corresponding Fellow, British Academy (1985–).
• Howard Behrman Award, Princeton University, 1988.
• Fellow, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea (1993–).
• Doctor of Humane Letters, honorary degree, Johns Hopkins University, 1997.
• Doctor of Humane Letters, honorary degree, University of Haifa, Israel, 1998.
• Fellow, Norwegian Academy of Sciences (2000–).
• Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy, Swedish Academy of Sciences, 2001.
• Doctor of Humane Letters, honorary degree, University of Pennsylvania, 2005.
• Fellow, American Philosophical Society (2005–).

Works[link]

Books[link]

• Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-59845-8 and reprints 1972.
• Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: an Elementary Exposition. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982. ISBN 0-674-95401-7. Sets out his interpretation of Wittgenstein aka Kripkenstein.
• Collected Papers, Vol. I. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Abstracts and articles[link]

• 1959. "A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic", Journal of Symbolic Logic 24(1):1–14.
• 1959. "Distinguished Constituents" (abstract), The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 24(4):323.
• 1959. "Semantical Analysis of Modal Logic" (abstract), The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 24(4):323-324.
• 1959. "The Problem of Entailment" (abstract), The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 24(4):324.
• 1962. "‘Flexible’ Predicates of Formal Number Theory," Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, 13(4):647-650.
• 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. Research Announcement: "Deduction-preserving ‘Recursive Isomorphisms’ between Theories" (with Marian Boykan Pour-El), Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 73:145-148.
• 1967. "An Extension of a Theorem of Gaifman-Hales-Solovay," Fundamenta Mathematicae, Vol. 61, pp. 29–32.
• 1967. "Transfinite Recursion, Constructible Sets, and Analogues of Cardinals," Summaries of Talks Prepared in Connection with the Summer Institute on Axiomatic Set Theory, American Mathematical Society, U.C.L.A., pp. IV-0-1 - IV-0-12.
• 1967. "On the Application of Boolean-Valued Models to Solutions of Problems in Boolean Algebra," in Summaries of Talks Prepared in Connection with the Summer Institute on Axiomatic Set Theory, American Mathematical Society, U.C.L.A. (1967), pp. IV-T-1 through IV-T-7.
• 1967. "Deduction-preserving ‘Recursive Isomorphisms’ between Theories" (with Marian Boykan Pour-El), Fundamenta Mathematicae 61:141-163.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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
• 2009. "Presupposition and Anaphora: Remarks on the formulation of the projection problem," Linguistic Inquiry 40(3):367-386.
• 2009. "The Collapse of the Hilbert Program," (Abstract) Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 15(2):229-231.
• 2011. "The First Person," Collected Papers Vol. I, Oxford University Press. The videos "The First Person" and "Questions and Answers" in which the paper is based are available here.
• 2011. "Two Paradoxes of Knowledge," Collected Papers Vol. I, Oxford University Press.
• 2011. "Nozick on Knowledge," Collected Papers Vol. I, Oxford University Press.
• 2011. "A Puzzle about Time and Thought," Collected Papers Vol. I, Oxford University Press.
• 2011. "Vacuous Names and Fictional Entities," Collected Papers Vol. I, Oxford University Press.
• 2011. "Unrestricted Exportation and Some Morals for the Philosophy of Language," Collected Papers Vol. I, Oxford University Press. Podcast of the talk available here.
• (Forthcoming). “Another Approach: The Church-Turing ‘Thesis’ as a Special Corollary of Gödel’s Completeness Theorem,” in Computability: Gödel, Turing, Church, and beyond, Copeland, B. J., Posy, C., and Shagrir, O. (eds), Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.

Unpublished manuscripts and lectures[link]

• 1963. “History and Idealism: the Theory of R. G. Collingwood”.
• 1973. John Locke Lectures: "Reference and Existence". (Transcript available in the Philosophy Library, Oxford University)
• 1975. "Three Lectures on Truth". Princeton University. Discussed here.
• 197-. “On The Completeness and Decidability of Intuitionistic Propositional Logic”.
• 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.
• 1984. "Lessons on Functionalism and Automata". (Delivered at the International Wittgenstein Symposium, 1984. Transcribed by Roderick Chisholm.^[14]
• 198-. “A Proof of Gamma.”
• 198-. “A Note on Zabludowski’s Critique of Goodman’s Theory of Projection”.
• 1986. “Rigid Designation and the Contingent A Priori: The Meter Stick Revisited” (Notre Dame, 1986).
• 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 here.
• 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.
• 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.“The Ordered Pair: A Philosophical Paradigm Revisited”.
• 1996. "Elementary Recursion Theory and its Applications to Formal Systems." Transcribed by Mario Gomez Torrente and John Barker. Index available here.
• 1999. "The Road to Gödel". (Read at Haifa University, Israel, 1999. Several transcripts exist.
• 2006. "From Church's Thesis to the First Order Algorithm Theorem," Tel Aviv University, June 13, 2006. Video available here and abstract available here.
• 2007. "Roundtable on Externalism" (Hilary Putnam, Tyler Burge, Saul Kripke, and Michael Devitt). University College Dublin, Ireland. Podcast available here.
• 2007. "The Collapse of the Hilbert Program". Indiana University, Presidential Lecture. Video available here.
• 2008. “Mathematical Incompleteness Results in Peano Arithmetic, a Revisionist View of the Early History”.

Interviews and articles[link]

• "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, January 28, 2006.
• "The Best Five Books on the Philosophy of Language" by Scott Soames, October 15, 2010.

See also[link]

• American philosophy
• Kripke structure
• List of American philosophers

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Taylor Branch (1977), "New Frontiers in American Philosophy: Saul Kripke". New York Times Magazine.
• Nathan Salmon (1981), Reference and Essence. ISBN 1-59102-215-0 ISBN 978-1591022152.
• Consuelo Preti (2002), On Kripke. Wadsworth. ISBN 0-534-58366-0.
• 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 0-8264-9262-2.
• Christopher Norris (2007), Fiction, Philosophy and Literary Theory: Will the Real Saul Kripke Please Stand Up? London: Continuum

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Saul Kripke

	Philosophy portal
	Logic portal

• CUNY Graduate Center Philosophy Department faculty page
• The Saul Kripke Center, at the CUNY Graduate Center
• Saul Kripke at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Saul Kripke, Genius Logician A short, non-technical interview by Andreas Saugstad, February 25, 2001.
• The conference in honor of Kripke's sixty-fifth birthday with a video of his speech "The First Person", January 25–26, 2006
• Video of his talk "From Church's Thesis to the First Order Algorithm Theorem," June 13, 2006.
• Podcast of his talk "Unrestricted Exportation and Some Morals for the Philosophy of Language," May 21, 2008.
• London Review of Books article by Jerry Fodor discussing Kripke's work
• Celebrating CUNY's Genius Philosopher, by Gary Shapiro, January 27, 2006, in The New York Sun.
• information from 'Philosophy Professor' website
• A New York Times article about his 65th birthday
• Roundtable on Kripke's critique of mind-body identity with Scott Soames as the main presenter May 26, 2010.

King Saul
King of Israel
David Plays the Harp for Saul, by Rembrandt van Rijn, c. 1658.
Reign	c.1049 BC to 1007 BC (42 years)
Coronation	at Gilgal
Born	1079 BC
Birthplace	possibly Gibeah
Died	c.1007 BC (aged 72)
Place of death	Battle of Mount Gilboa
Successor	David (Judah), Ish-bosheth (Israel)
Consort	Ahinoam, daughter of Ahimaaz
Father	Kish according to the Tanakh of the family of the Matrites, and a member of the tribe of Benjamin, one of the tribes of Israel.

Saul (Hebrew: שָׁאוּל, Šāʼûl ; "asked for, prayed for"; Arabic: طالوت‎, Ṭālūt; Greek: Σαούλ Saoul; Latin: Saul) (circa 1079 BC – 1007 BC) was the first king of the united Kingdom of Israel. He was anointed by the prophet Samuel and reigned from Gibeah. He fell on his sword to avoid capture in the battle against the Philistines at Mount Gilboa, during which three of his sons were also killed. The succession to his throne was contested by Ish-bosheth, his only surviving son, and his son-in-law David, who eventually prevailed. The main account of Saul's life and reign is found in the Books of Samuel.

The Biblical account[link]

House of King Saul[link]

According to the Tanakh, Saul was the son of Kish, of the family of the Matrites, and a member of the tribe of Benjamin, one of the twelve Tribes of Israel. (1 Samuel 9:1-2; 10:21; 14:51; Acts 13:21) It appears that he came from Gibeah.

David and Saul (1885) by Julius Kronberg.

Saul married Ahinoam, daughter of Ahimaaz. They had four sons and two daughters. The sons were Jonathan, Abinadab, Malchishua and Ish-bosheth. Their daughters were named Merab and Michal.^[1]

Saul also had a concubine named Rizpah, daughter of Aiah, who bore him two sons, Armoni and Mephibosheth. (2 Samuel 21:8)

Saul offered Merab to David as a wife after his victory over Goliath, but David does not seem to have been interested in the arrangement. (1 Samuel 18:17-19) Saul then gave his other daughter Michal in marriage to David, (1 Samuel 18:20-27) but when David became Saul's rival to the kingship, Saul gave Michal in marriage to Palti, son of Laish. (1 Samuel 25:44)

Saul died at the Battle of Mount Gilboa (1 Samuel 31:3-6; 1 Chronicles 10:3-6), and was buried in Zelah, in the region of Benjamin in modern-day Israel. (2 Samuel 21:14) When Saul first became king, he followed Samuel's bidding. Eventually, as Saul disobeyed God, God told Samuel to anoint a new king.

Ish-bosheth[link]

Three of Saul's sons – Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Malchishua – died with him at Mount Gilboa (1 Samuel 31:2; 1 Chronicles 10:2). Ish-bosheth became king of Israel, at the age of forty. (2 Samuel 2:10) Michal was returned as wife to David.

Ish-bosheth reigned for two years and was killed by two of his own captains. (2 Samuel 4:5) The only male descendant of Saul to survive was Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son, (2 Samuel 4:4) who had been five when his father and grandfather Saul had died in battle. In time, he came under the protection of David. (2 Samuel 9:7-13) Mephibosheth had a young son, Micah, (2 Samuel 9:12) of whom nothing more is heard.

Armoni and Mephibosheth (Saul's sons with his concubine, Rizpah) were given by David along with the five sons of Merab (Saul's daughter)^[2] to the Gibeonites, who killed them. (2 Samuel 21:8-9) Michal was childless. (2 Samuel 6:23)

Anointed as king[link]

"Death of King Saul", 1848 by Elie Marcuse (Germany and France, 1817-1902)

Samuel, the Judge, had sons who were dishonest and not trustworthy of the faith. The leaders of the Israelites feared that it would be disastrous if his sons were to be judge over them and requested that Samuel give them a king. God warned that if he appointed a king over them, they would suffer from the dealings of the king. Saul, a young Israelite, was commanded by his father, Kish, to go and locate their lost donkeys. Saul obeyed and Samuel saw him walking toward him. God revealed to Samuel that Saul would be the one anointed as the "first" King of Israel. Peter J. Leithart observes:

Saul, the first king, begins as an ideal choice to lead and judge Israel ..... Saul cares for his father's animals (as did Joseph and Moses, and as David will), and he is a dutiful son ..... Saul is a handsome man and a head taller than any Israelite (1 Samuel 9:2)^[3]

In the Books of Samuel, Saul is not referred to as a king (melech), but rather as a “leader” or “commander” (nagid) (1 Samuel 9:16; 1 Samuel 10:1).^[4] However (possibly representing an opposing literary strain^{[citation needed]}), Saul is said to be made a "king" (melech) at Gilgal (1 Samuel 11:15). Even David, before he was anointed king, was referred to only as a future nagid, or military commander (1 Samuel 13:14).

The Israelite people generally used the term “king,” because their desire, 1 Samuel recounts, was to be like the other nations (1 Samuel 8:5; 10:19). This may be indicative of the tension between what a certain faction of the people wanted, and a definite reluctance of certain leaders (e.g., the prophet Samuel) to break with the old tribal order. But Saul was finally crowned as "king" (melech) in Gilgal. (1 Samuel 11:14-12:2)

The Books of Samuel give three events in Saul's rise to the throne:

• (1 Samuel 9:1-10:16) Saul was sent with a servant to look for his father's donkeys, who had strayed; leaving his home at Gibeah, they eventually wandered to the district of Zuph, at which point Saul suggested abandoning their search. Saul's servant however, remarked that they happened to be near the town of Ramah, where a famous seer was located, and suggested that they should consult him first. The seer (later identified by the text as Samuel), having previously had a vision instructing him to do so, offered hospitality to Saul when he entered Ramah, and later anointed him in private.

• (1 Samuel 10:17-24 and 12:1-5) Reflecting a desire to be like other nations, there was a popular movement to establish a centralised monarchy. Samuel therefore assembled the people at Mizpah in Benjamin, and despite having strong reservations, which he made no attempt to hide, allowed the appointment of a king. Samuel used cleromancy to determine who it was that God desired to be the king, whittling the assembly down into ever smaller groups until Saul was finally identified. Saul, hiding among the baggage^[5], was then publicly affirmed.

• (1 Samuel 11:1-11 and 11:15) The Ammonites, led by Nahash, laid siege to Jabesh-Gilead, which was forced to surrender. Under the terms of surrender, the occupants of the city would be forced into slavery, and have their right eyes removed as a sign of this. The city's occupants sent out word of this to the other tribes of Israel, and the tribes west of the Jordan assembled an army under the leadership of Saul. Saul led the army to victory against the Ammonites, and, in gratitude and appreciation of his military skill, the people congregated at Gilgal, and acclaimed Saul as king.

Rejection[link]

Saul and the Witch of Endor by Gustave Dore.

According to 1 Samuel 10:8, Samuel had told Saul to wait for seven days after which they would meet; Samuel giving Saul further instructions. But as Samuel did not arrive after 7 days (1 Samuel 13:8) and with the Israelites growing restless, Saul started preparing for battle by offering sacrifices. Samuel arrived just as Saul finished offering his sacrifices and reprimanded Saul for not obeying his instructions. As a result of not keeping God's instructions, and for taking the duties of a Levite priest into his own hands, God took away Saul's kingship (1 Samuel 13:14). After the battle with the Philistines was over, the text describes Samuel as having instructed Saul to kill all the Amalekites, which was in accordance with the mitzvah to do so. Having forewarned the Kenites who were living among the Amalekites to leave, Saul went to war and defeated the Amalekites. Saul killed all the babies, women, children, poor quality livestock and men, and left alive the king and best livestock.

When Samuel found out that Saul had not killed them all, he became angry and launched into a long and bitter diatribe about how God regretted making Saul king, because Saul was disobedient. When Samuel turned away, Saul grabbed Samuel by his clothes and tore a small piece off them, which Samuel states is a prophecy about what will happen to Saul's kingdom. Samuel then commands that the Amalekite king (who, like all other Amalekite kings in the Hebrew Bible, is named Agag) should be brought forth. Samuel proceeds to kill the Amalekite himself and makes a final departure.

Saul and David[link]

It is at this point that David, a son of Jesse, from the tribe of Judah, enters the story:

• (1 Samuel 16:1-13) Samuel is surreptitiously sent by God to Jesse. While offering a sacrifice in the vicinity, Samuel includes Jesse among the invited guests. Dining together, Jesse's sons are brought one by one to Samuel, each time being rejected by him, speaking for God; running out of sons, Jesse sends for David, the youngest, who was tending sheep. When brought to Samuel, David is anointed by him in front of his other brothers.

• (1 Samuel 16:14-23) Saul is troubled by an evil spirit sent by God (some translations euphemistically just describe God not preventing an evil spirit from troubling Saul^{[citation needed]}). Saul requests soothing music, and a servant recommends David the son of Jesse, who is renowned as a skillful harpist and soldier. When word of Saul's needs reach Jesse, he sends David, who had been looking after a flock, and David is appointed as Saul's armor bearer. David remains at court playing the harp as needed by Saul to calm his moods.

• (1 Samuel 17:1-18:5) The Philistines return with an army to attack Israel, but, having amassed on a hillside opposite to the Israelite forces, suggest that to save effort and lives on both sides, it would be better to have a proxy combat between their champion, a Rephaim from Gath named Goliath, and someone of Saul's choosing. David, a young shepherd boy, happens to be delivering food to his three eldest brothers, who are in the Israelite army, at the time that the challenge is made. David, who is faithful of God's power to defeat his enemies, talks to the nearby soldiers mocking the Philistines, but is reprimanded by his brothers for doing so. David's speech is overheard and reported to Saul, who summons David and on hearing David's views decides to fit him out with his (Saul's) own armour. Saul then appoints David as his champion, and David defeats Goliath with a single shot from a sling, which hits him in between the eyes. Goliath falls forward and David decapitates him with his own sword.

Saul's love of glory[link]

"Saul Throws Spear at David" by George Tinworth

In the text, Saul's son Jonathan becomes David's dearest friend. Eventually, David becomes Jonathan's brother-in-law by Michal. Jonathan recognises David as the rightful king, and 1 Samuel 18 states "Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul."^[6] Jonathan even gives David his military clothes, symbolizing David's position as successor to Saul.

God makes David successful wherever Saul sends him. Therefore Saul sets David in charge of the army. After David returns from battle, the women heap praise upon him and refer to him as a greater military hero than Saul...who becomes jealous, fearing David as a rival to the throne.

Another day, while David is playing the harp, Saul - possessed by an evil spirit - throws a spear at him but misses on two occasions. Saul removes David from the court and appoints him an officer, but David becomes increasingly successful...which makes Saul even more resentful of him. In return for being his champion, Saul offers his daughter Merob to David as a wife. But David is too humble to accept, so Merob is married to a different man. When Saul's other daughter Michal falls in love with David, Saul repeats the offer. Again David turns it down, claiming he lacks the wealth of a suitable husband. Saul persuades David that the bride price would only be 100 foreskins from the Philistines; he secretly hopes that David will be slain trying to achieve this. Instead, David obtains 200 foreskins and is consequently married to Michal.

The narrative continues as Saul plots against David, but Jonathan dissuades Saul from this course of action; he also tells David of it. Saul tries to have David killed during the night, but Michal helps him escape and tricks his pursuers by using a household idol to make it seem that David is still in bed. David flees to Jonathan, who wasn't living near Saul. Jonathan returns to Saul, hoping to discover his father's ultimate intent. While dining with Saul, Jonathan pretends that David has been called away to his brothers. But Saul sees through the ruse and castigates Jonathan for being David's protector; clearly, Saul wants David slain. The next day, Jonathan meets with David and tells him Saul's intent. The two friends say their goodbyes, and David flees into the countryside. Saul later marries Michal to another man.

Saul is later informed by his head shepherd, an Edomite named Doeg, that Ahimelech assisted David. A henchman is sought to kill Ahimelech and the other priests of Nob. None of Saul's henchmen are willing to do this, so Doeg offers to do it instead...killing 85 priests. Saul also kills every man, woman and child living in Nob.

David had already left Nob by this point and had amassed about 400 disaffected men including a group of outlaws. With these men David launches an attack on the Philistines at Keilah. Saul realises he could trap David and his men by laying the city to siege. Yet David hears about this and, having received divine counsel (via the Ephod), finds that the citizens of Keilah would betray him to Saul. He flees to Ziph. Saul discovers this and pursues David on two occasions:

• Some of the inhabitants of Ziph betray David's location to Saul, but David hears about it and flees with his men to Maon. Saul follows David, but while Saul travels along one side of the gorge, David travels along the other, and Saul is forced to break off pursuit when the Philistines invade. This is supposedly how the place became known as the gorge of divisions. David hides in the caves at Engedi and after fighting the Philistines, Saul returns to Engedi to attack him. Saul eventually enters the cave in which David had been hiding, but as David is in the darkest recesses Saul doesn't spot him. David cuts off a piece of Saul's robe; yet David restrains himself and his associates from going further, due to a taboo against killing an anointed king...and also due to the risk of rationalizing Saul's jealousy and paranoia. David then leaves the cave, revealing himself to Saul, and gives a speech that persuades Saul to reconcile.

• On the second occasion, Saul returns to Ziph with his men. When David hears of this he sneaks into Saul's camp by night, and thrusts his spear into the ground near where Saul is sleeping. David prevents his associates from killing Saul, because doing so would prove the former no more worthy than the latter; Instead, David merely steals Saul's spear and water jug. The next day, David stands atop a slope opposite Saul's camp; he shows the jug and spear as proof that he could have slain Saul but did not. David then persuades Saul to reconcile with him; the two swear never to harm one another.

Saul is among the prophets[link]

The phrase Saul is among the prophets, is mentioned by the text in a way that suggests it was a proverb in later Israelite culture. Two accounts of its origin are given:

• (1 Samuel 10:11 etc.) Having been anointed by Samuel, Saul is told of signs he will receive to know that he has been divinely appointed. The last of these signs is that Saul will be met by an ecstatic group of prophets leaving a high place and playing music on lyre, tambourine, and flutes. The signs come true (though the text skips the first two, suggesting that a portion of the text has been lost, or edited out for some reason), and Saul joins the ecstatic prophets, hence the phrase.

• (1 Samuel 19:24 etc.) Saul sends men to pursue David, but when they meet a group of ecstatic prophets playing music on lyre, tambourine, and flute, they become possessed by a prophetic state and join in. Saul sends more men, but they too join the prophets. Eventually Saul himself goes, and also joins the prophets, hence the phrase.

Battle of Gilboa and the death of King Saul[link]

The Battle of Gilboa, by Jean Fouquet, the protagonists depicted anachronistically with 15th Century armour

Despite the oath(s) of reconciliation, David felt insecure, and so made an alliance with the Philistines, becoming their vassal. Emboldened by this, the Philistines prepared to attack Israel, and Saul led out his army to face them at Mount Gilboa, but before the battle decided to consult the witch of Endor for advice. The witch, unaware of who he was, reminded Saul that the king (i.e. Saul himself) had made witchery a capital offence, but after being assured that Saul wouldn't harm her, the witch conjures up the spirit of Samuel. Upon seeing the spirit of Samuel Saul fell with his face to the ground and Samuel asked Saul "Why have you disquieted me, to bring me up?" Saul told Samuel's spirit of the forthcoming battle with Philistine and that God will not answer him anymore when he prays, and asks for understanding. Samuel then told Saul that he will lose the battle and his life. Broken in spirit, Saul returned to face the enemy, and the Israelites were duly defeated. To escape the ignominy of capture, Saul asked his armour bearer to kill him, but was forced to commit suicide by falling on his sword when the armour bearer refuses. An Amalekite then claimed to have killed Saul, and the Amalekite told David. Infuriated, David ordered the Amalekite to be put to death as punishment for killing God's anointed, despite Saul's earlier assassination attempt upon David. The body of Saul, with those of his sons, was fastened to the wall of Beth-shan, and his armor was hung up in the house of Ashtaroth (an Ascalonian temple of the Canaanites). The inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead (the scene of Saul's first victory) rescued the bodies and took them to Jabesh-gilead, where they burned their flesh and buried the bones.

Classical Rabbinical views[link]

Two opposing views of Saul are found in classical rabbinical literature. One is based on the reverse logic that punishment is a proof of guilt, and therefore seeks to rob Saul of any halo which might surround him; typically this view is similar to the republican source. The passage referring to Saul as a choice young man, and goodly (1 Samuel 9:2) is in this view interpreted as meaning that Saul was not good in every respect, but goodly only with respect to his personal appearance (Num. Rashi 9:28). According to this view, Saul is only a weak branch (Gen. Rashi 25:3), owing his kingship not to his own merits, but rather to his grandfather, who had been accustomed to light the streets for those who went to the bet ha-midrash, and had received as his reward the promise that one of his grandsons should sit upon the throne (Lev. Rashi 9:2).

The second view of Saul makes him appear in the most favourable light as man, as hero, and as king. This view is similar to that of the monarchical source. In this view it was on account of his modesty that he did not reveal the fact that he had been anointed king (1 Samuel 10:16; Meg. 13b); and he was extraordinarily upright as well as perfectly just. Nor was there any one more pious than he (M. Q. 16b; Ex. Rashi 30:12); for when he ascended the throne he was as pure as a child, and had never committed sin (Yoma 22b). He was marvelously handsome; and the maidens who told him concerning Samuel (cf 1 Samuel 9:11-13) talked so long with him that they might observe his beauty the more (Ber. 48b). In war he was able to march 120 miles without rest. When he received the command to smite Amalek (1 Samuel 15:3), Saul said: For one found slain the Torah requires a sin offering [Deuteronomy 21:1-9]; and here so many shall be slain. If the old have sinned, why should the young suffer; and if men have been guilty, why should the cattle be destroyed? It was this mildness that cost him his crown. And while Saul was merciful to his enemies, he was strict with his own people; when he found out that Avimelech, a kohen, had assisted David with finding food, Saul, in retaliation, killed the rest of the 85 kohanim of the family of Avimelech and the rest of his hometown, Nov. (Yoma 22b; Num. Rashi 1:10) The fact that he was merciful even to his enemies, being indulgent to rebels themselves, and frequently waiving the homage due to him, was incredible as well as deceiving. But if his mercy toward a foe was a sin, it was his only one; and it was his misfortune that it was reckoned against him, while David, although he had committed much iniquity, was so favored that it was not remembered to his injury (Yoma 22b; M. Q. 16b, and Rashi ad loc.). In some respects Saul was superior to David, e.g., in having only one concubine {Rizpah}, while David had many. Saul expended his own substance for the war, and although he knew that he and his sons would fall in battle, he nevertheless went forward, while David heeded the wish of his soldiers not to go to war in person (2 Samuel 21:17; Lev. Rashi 26:7; Yalq., Sam. 138).

According to the Rabbis, Saul ate his food with due regard for the rules of ceremonial purity prescribed for the sacrifice (Yalq., l.c.), and taught the people how they should slay cattle (cf 1 Samuel 14:34). As a reward for this, God himself gave Saul a sword on the day of battle, since no other sword suitable for him was found (ibid 13:22). Saul's attitude toward David finds its excuse in the fact that his courtiers were all tale-bearers, and slandered David to him (Deut. Rashi 5:10); and in like manner he was incited by Doeg against the priests of Nob (1 Samuel 22:16-19; Yalq., Sam. 131) - this act was forgiven him, however, and a heavenly voice (bat qol) was heard, proclaiming: Saul is the chosen one of God (Ber. 12b). His anger at the Gibeonites (2 Samuel 21:2) was not personal hatred, but was induced by zeal for the welfare of Israel (Num. Rashi 8:4). The fact that he made his daughter remarry (1 Samuel 25:44), finds its explanation in his (Saul's) view that her betrothal to David had been gained by false pretenses, and was therefore invalid (Sanhedrin 19b). During the lifetime of Saul there was no idolatry in Israel. The famine in the reign of David (cf 2 Samuel 21:1) was to punish the people, because they had not accorded Saul the proper honours at his burial (Num. Rashi 8:4). In Sheol, Samuel reveals to Saul that in the next world, Saul would dwell with Samuel, which is a proof that all has been forgiven him by god('Er. 53ba]

Biblical criticism[link]

Saul's name and Samuel's birth-narrative[link]

The birth-narrative of the prophet Samuel is found at 1 Samuel 1-28. It describes how Samuel's mother Hannah requests a son from Yahweh, and dedicates the child to God at the shrine of Shiloh. The passage makes extensive play with the root-elements of Saul's name, and ends with the phrase hu sa'ul le-Yahweh, "he is dedicated to Yahweh." Hannah names the resulting son Samuel, giving as her explanation, "because from God I requested him." Samuel's name, however, means "name of God," and the etymology and multiple references to the root of the name seems to fit Saul instead. The majority explanation for the discrepancy is that the narrative originally described the birth of Saul, and was given to Samuel in order to enhance the position of David and Samuel at the former king's expense.^[7]

Divine Rejection or Judgement[link]

The main challenge Saul encounters is his lack of divine approval; he is portrayed negatively as soon as David is added to the narrative.^[8] At this point Saul is rejected and the Spirit of the Lord is replaced by an "evil spirit" explained in 1 Samuel 16:14. In contrast, once David is anointed, "the spirit of the Lord comes upon [him]."^[8] David's anointment differs from Saul's because it is relatively unfailing throughout the narrative despite David's shortcomings, such as his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah.

In Islam[link]

Muslims believe Saul (Arabic: طالوت, Tālūt‎) was the commander of Israel, as do Jews and Christians. According to the Qur'an, Saul was chosen by the prophet Samuel (not mentioned by name explicitly but rather as "a Prophet" of Israelites) after being asked by the people of Israel for a king to lead them into war. The Israelites criticized Samuel for appointing Saul because Saul was not wealthy so they had no respect for him. Samuel rebuked the people for this and told them that Saul was far more favored than they were. Saul led the Israelites to victory over the army of Goliath who was killed by David. Saul is not considered a prophet generally but rather a divinely appointed king.

Name[link]

The name Tālūt has uncertain etymological origins. It is not similar to the Hebrew name (Sha'ul), like most Qur'anic figures. According to Muslim exegetes, the name Tālūt means 'tall' (from the Arabic "tūl") and refers to the extraordinary stature of Saul - in consonance with Biblical accounts, Muslim exegetes explain that Saul's remarkable feature was his stature.^[9] In explanation of the name, exegetes such as Tha'labi hold that at this time, the future king of Israel was to be recognised by his height; Samuel set up a measure, but no one in Israel reached its height except Tālūt (Saul).

Saul as the first King[link]

In the Qur'an, Israel demanded a king after the time of Moses. God appointed Saul king, but the people did not find him worthy of the throne. Saul was distinguished for the greatness of his knowledge and for his great physique; it was a sign of his role as King to rule that God brought back the Ark of the Covenant for Israel. Saul tested his people at a river; whoever drank from it, would not follow him in battle. Many drunk but only the faithful ventured on. In the battle, however, David slew Goliath and was made the subsequent King of Israel. The Qur'anic account differs slightly from the Biblical account in that the sacred ark was recaptured in the Bible before Saul's accession and the test by drinking water is made in the Bible not by Saul but by Gideon.^[10]

Notes[link]

See also[link]

• Midrash Samuel
• Islamic view of David

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Saul

Further reading[link]

• Wellhausen, Julius, Der Text der Bücher Samuelis
• Budde, Die Bücher Richter und Samuel, 1890, pp. 167–276
• Driver, S. R., Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel, 1890
• Cheyne, T. K., Aids to the Devout Study of Criticism, 1892, pp. 1–126
• Smith, H. P., Old Testament History, 1903, ch. vii.
• Cheyne, T. K., and Black, (eds.) Encyclopedia Biblica
• SAMUEL AND SAUL: A NEGATIVE SYMBIOSIS by Rabbi Moshe Reiss
• Hudson, J. Francis, 'Rabshakeh' [Lion Publishing 1992] is a fictionalisation of Saul's tragedy.
• Green, A., 'King Saul, The True History of the First Messiah' [Lutterworth Press 2007]

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Joseph Jacobs, Ira Maurice Price, Isidore Singer, and Jacob Zallel Lauterbach (1901–1906). "Saul". Jewish Encyclopedia. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=275&letter=S. 

Kripke is an English surname and may refer to:

• Dorothy K. Kripke, an American author of Jewish educational books, and the mother of Saul Kripke
• Eric Kripke, an American television writer, director, and producer
• Margaret L. Kripke, a professor of immunology
• Saul Kripke, an American philosopher and logician

Fictional[link]

• Barry Kripke, a character in the sitcom The Big Bang Theory

This page or section lists people with the surname Kripke. If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.

Hilary Whitehall Putnam

Born	(1926-07-31) July 31, 1926 (age 85) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Analytic Pragmatism
Main interests	Philosophy of mind Philosophy of language Philosophy of mathematics Metaphilosophy Epistemology
Notable ideas	Multiple realizability Functionalism Causal theory of reference Semantic externalism Brain in a vat · Twin Earth Internal realism
Influenced by W.V.O. Quine, John Dewey, Hans Reichenbach, Alan Turing, Immanuel Kant, Nelson Goodman, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud[1]
Influenced Jerry Fodor, Ned Block, Joseph LeDoux, Tyler Burge, David Marr, Daniel Dennett, David Lewis, Donald Davidson

Hilary Whitehall Putnam (born July 31, 1926) is an American philosopher, mathematician and computer scientist, who has been a central figure in analytic philosophy since the 1960s, especially in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science.^[2] He is known for his willingness to apply an equal degree of scrutiny to his own philosophical positions as to those of others, subjecting each position to rigorous analysis until he exposes its flaws.^[3] As a result, he has acquired a reputation for frequently changing his own position.^[4] Putnam is currently Cogan University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University.

In philosophy of mind, Putnam is known for his argument against the type-identity of mental and physical states based on his hypothesis of the multiple realizability of the mental, and for the concept of functionalism, an influential theory regarding the mind-body problem.^[2][5] In philosophy of language, along with Saul Kripke and others, he developed the causal theory of reference, and formulated an original theory of meaning, inventing the notion of semantic externalism based on a famous thought experiment called Twin Earth.^[6]

In philosophy of mathematics, he and his mentor W. V. Quine developed the "Quine-Putnam indispensability thesis," an argument for the reality of mathematical entities,^[7] later espousing the view that mathematics is not purely logical, but "quasi-empirical".^[8] In the field of epistemology, he is known for his critique of the well known "brain in a vat" thought experiment. This thought experiment appears to provide a powerful argument for epistemological skepticism, but Putnam challenges its coherence.^[9] In metaphysics, he originally espoused a position called metaphysical realism, but eventually became one of its most outspoken critics, first adopting a view he called "internal realism",^[10] which he later abandoned in favor of a pragmatist-inspired direct realism. Putnam's "direct realism" aims to return the study of metaphysics to the way people actually experience the world, rejecting the idea of mental representations, sense data, and other intermediaries between mind and world.^[11] In his later work, Putnam has become increasingly interested in American pragmatism, Jewish philosophy, and ethics, thus engaging with a wider array of philosophical traditions. He has also displayed an interest in metaphilosophy, seeking to "renew philosophy" from what he identifies as narrow and inflated concerns.

Outside philosophy, Putnam has contributed to mathematics and computer science. Together with Martin Davis he developed the Davis–Putnam algorithm for the Boolean satisfiability problem^[12] and he helped demonstrate the unsolvability of Hilbert's tenth problem.^[13] He has been at times a politically controversial figure, especially for his involvement with the Progressive Labor Party in the late 1960s and early 1970s.^[14][15]

Personal life[link]

Putnam was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1926. His father, Samuel Putnam, was a scholar of Romance languages, columnist and translator who wrote for the Daily Worker, a publication of the American Communist Party from 1936 to 1946 (when he became disillusioned with communism).^[16] As a result of his father's commitment to communism, Putnam had a secular upbringing, although his mother, Riva, was Jewish.^[3] The family lived in France until 1934, when they returned to the United States, settling in Philadelphia.^[3] Putnam attended Central High School; there he met Noam Chomsky, who was a year behind him. The two have been friends—and often intellectual opponents—ever since.^[17] Putnam studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his BA (undergraduate degree) and becoming a member of the Philomathean Society, one of the oldest collegiate literary societies in the U.S.^[3][14] He went on to do graduate work in philosophy at Harvard University,^[3] and later at UCLA's Philosophy Department, where he received his Ph.D. in 1951 for a dissertation entitled "The Meaning of the Concept of Probability in Application to Finite Sequences". Putnam's teacher Hans Reichenbach (his dissertation supervisor) was a leading figure in logical positivism, the dominant school of philosophy of the day; one of Putnam's most consistent positions has been his rejection of logical positivism as self-defeating.^[14]

After briefly teaching at Northwestern, Princeton, and MIT, he moved to Harvard in 1965 with his wife, Ruth Anna Jacobs, who took a teaching position in philosophy at Wellesley College.^[14] Hilary and Ruth Anna were married in 1962.^[18] Ruth Anna Jacobs, descendant of a family with a long scholarly tradition in Gotha (her ancestor was the German classical scholar Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Jacobs), was born in Berlin, Germany,^[19] in 1927 to anti-Nazi political-activist parents and, like Putnam himself, she was raised an atheist (her mother was Jewish and her father had been from a Christian background).^[18] The Putnams, rebelling against the anti-Semitism that they had experienced during their youth, decided to establish a traditional Jewish home for their children.^[18] Since they had no experience with the rituals of Judaism, they sought out invitations to other Jews' homes for Seder. They had "no idea how to do it [themselves]", in the words of Ruth Anna. They therefore began to study Jewish ritual and Hebrew, and became more Jewishly interested, identified, and active. In 1994, Hilary Putnam celebrated a belated Bar Mitzvah service. His wife had a Bat Mitzvah service four years later.^[18]

Hilary was a popular teacher at Harvard. In keeping with the family tradition, he was politically active.^[14] In the 1960s and early 1970s, he was an active supporter of civil rights causes and an opponent of American military intervention in Vietnam.^[15] In 1963, he organized one of the first faculty and student committees at MIT against the war. Putnam was disturbed when he learned from reading the reports of David Halberstam that the U.S. was "defending" South Vietnamese peasants from the Vietcong by poisoning their rice crops.^[14] After moving to Harvard in 1965, he organized campus protests and began teaching courses on Marxism. Hilary became an official faculty advisor to the Students for a Democratic Society and, in 1968, became a member of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP).^[14]

He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1965.^[20] After 1968, his political activities were centered on the PLP.^[15] The Harvard administration considered these activities disruptive and attempted to censure Putnam, but two other faculty members criticized the procedures.^[21] Putnam permanently severed his ties with the PLP in 1972.^[22] In 1997, at a meeting of former draft resistance activists at Arlington Street Church in Boston, Putnam described his involvement with the PLP as a mistake. He said that he had been impressed at first with PLP's commitment to alliance-building, and its willingness to attempt to organize from within the armed forces.^[15]

In 1976, he was elected President of the American Philosophical Association. The following year, he was selected as Walter Beverly Pearson Professor of Mathematical Logic, in recognition of his contributions to philosophy of logic and mathematics.^[14] While breaking with his radical past, Putnam has never abandoned his belief that academics have a particular social and ethical responsibility toward society. He has continued to be forthright and progressive in his political views, as expressed in the articles "How Not to Solve Ethical Problems" (1983) and "Education for Democracy" (1993).^[14]

Putnam is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He retired from teaching in June 2000, but, as of 2009, he still gives a seminar almost yearly at Tel Aviv University. He is the Cogan University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He is also a founding patron of the small liberal arts college Ralston College. His corpus includes five volumes of collected works, seven books, and more than 200 articles. Putnam's renewed interest in Judaism has inspired him to publish several recent books and essays on the topic.^[23] With his wife, he has co-authored several books and essays on the late-19th century American pragmatist movement.^[14]

Philosophy of mind[link]

Multiple realizability[link]

An illustration of multiple realizability. M stands for mental and P stands for physical. It can be seen that more than one P can instantiate one M, but not vice versa. Causal relations between states are represented by the arrows (M1 goes to M2, etc.)

Putnam's best-known work concerns philosophy of mind. His most noted original contributions to that field came in several key papers published in the late 1960s that set out the hypothesis of multiple realizability.^[24] In these papers, Putnam argues that, contrary to the famous claim of the type-identity theory, it is not necessarily true that "Pain is identical to C-fibre firing." Pain, according to Putnam's papers, may correspond to utterly different physical states of the nervous system in different organisms, and yet they all experience the same mental state of "being in pain".

Putnam cited examples from the animal kingdom to illustrate his thesis. He asked whether it was likely that the brain structures of diverse types of animals realize pain, or other mental states, the same way. If they do not share the same brain structures, they cannot share the same mental states and properties. The answer to this puzzle had to be that mental states were realized by different physical states in different species. Putnam then took his argument a step further, asking about such things as the nervous systems of alien beings, artificially intelligent robots and other silicon-based life forms. These hypothetical entities, he contended, should not be considered incapable of experiencing pain just because they lack the same neurochemistry as humans. Putnam concluded that type-identity theorists had been making an "ambitious" and "highly implausible" conjecture which could be disproven with one example of multiple realizability.^[25] This argument is sometimes referred to as the "likelihood argument".^[24]

Putnam formulated a complementary argument based on what he called "functional isomorphism". He defined the concept in these terms: "Two systems are functionally isomorphic if 'there is a correspondence between the states of one and the states of the other that preserves functional relations'." In the case of computers, two machines are functionally isomorphic if and only if the sequential relations among states in the first are exactly mirrored by the sequential relations among states in the other. Therefore, a computer made out of silicon chips and a computer made out of cogs and wheels can be functionally isomorphic but constitutionally diverse. Functional isomorphism implies multiple realizability.^[25] This argument is sometimes referred to as an "a priori argument".^[24]

Jerry Fodor, Putnam, and others noted that, along with being an effective argument against type-identity theories, multiple realizability implies that any low-level explanation of higher-level mental phenomena is insufficiently abstract and general.^[25][26][27] Functionalism, which identifies mental kinds with functional kinds that are characterized exclusively in terms of causes and effects, abstracts from the level of microphysics, and therefore seemed to be a better explanation of the relation between mind and body. In fact, there are many functional kinds, such as mousetraps, software and bookshelves, which are multiply realized at the physical level.^[25]

Machine state functionalism[link]

A Turing machine can be visualized as an infinite tape of slots that are written or erased one at a time, with the choice of action determined by a "state". According to Putnam's machine-state functionalism, the notions of state in an abstract computer and mental state are essentially the same.

The first formulation of such a functionalist theory was put forth by Putnam himself. This formulation, which is now called "machine-state functionalism", was inspired by analogies noted by Putnam and others between the mind and theoretical "Turing machines" capable of computing any given algorithm.^[28]

In non-technical terms, a Turing machine can be visualized as an infinitely long tape divided into squares (the memory) with a box-shaped scanning device that sits over and scans one square of the memory at a time. Each square is either blank (B) or has a 1 written on it. These are the inputs to the machine. The possible outputs are:

• Halt: Do nothing.
• R: move one square to the right.
• L: move one square to the left.
• B: erase whatever is on the square.
• 1: erase whatever is on the square and print a 1.

A simple example of a Turing machine which writes out the sequence '111' after scanning three blank squares and then stopping is specified by the following machine table:

This table states that if the machine is in state one and scans a blank square (B), it will print a 1 and remain in state one. If it is in state one and reads a 1, it will move one square to the right and also go into state two. If it is in state two and reads a B, it will print a 1 and stay in state two. If it's in state two and reads a 1, it will move one square to the right and go into state three. Finally, if it is in state three and reads a B, it prints a 1 and remains in state three.^[29]

The point, for functionalism, is the nature of the "states" of the Turing machine. Each state can be defined in terms of its relations to the other states and to the inputs and outputs. State one, for example, is simply the state in which the machine, if it reads a B, writes a 1 and stays in that state, and in which, if it reads a 1, it moves one square to the right and goes into a different state. This is the functional definition of state one; it is its causal role in the overall system. The details of how it accomplishes what it accomplishes and of its material constitution are completely irrelevant.

According to machine-state functionalism, the nature of a mental state is just like the nature of the automaton states described above. Just as "state one" simply is the state in which, given an input B, such-and-such happens, so being in pain is the state which disposes one to cry "ouch", become distracted, wonder what the cause is, and so forth.^[30]

Rejection of functionalism[link]

In the late 1980s, Putnam abandoned his adherence to functionalism and other computational theories of mind. His change of mind was primarily due to the difficulties that computational theories have in explaining certain intuitions with respect to the externalism of mental content. This is illustrated by Putnam's own Twin Earth thought experiment (see Philosophy of language).^[11] He also developed a separate argument against functionalism in 1988, based on Fodor's generalized version of multiple realizability. Asserting that functionalism is really a watered-down identity theory in which mental kinds are identified with functional kinds, Putnam argued that mental kinds may be multiply realizable over functional kinds. The argument for functionalism is that the same mental state could be implemented by the different states of a universal Turing machine.^[31]

Despite Putnam's rejection of functionalism, it has continued to flourish and has been developed into numerous versions by thinkers as diverse as David Marr, Daniel Dennett, Jerry Fodor, and David Lewis.^[32] Functionalism helped lay the foundations for modern cognitive science^[32] and is the dominant theory of mind in philosophy today.^[33]

Philosophy of language[link]

Semantic externalism[link]

One of Putnam's contributions to philosophy of language is his claim that "meaning just ain't in the head". He illustrated this using his "Twin Earth" thought experiment to argue that environmental factors play a substantial role in determining meaning. Twin Earth shows this, according to Putnam, since on Twin Earth everything is identical to Earth, except that its lakes, rivers and oceans are filled with XYZ whereas those of earth are filled with H₂O. Consequently, when an earthling, Fredrick, uses the Earth-English word "water", it has a different meaning from the Twin Earth-English word "water" when used by his physically identical twin, Frodrick, on Twin Earth. Since Fredrick and Frodrick are physically indistinguishable when they utter their respective words, and since their words have different meanings, meaning cannot be determined solely by what is in their heads. This led Putnam to adopt a version of semantic externalism with regard to meaning and mental content.^[9][25] The late philosopher of mind and language Donald Davidson, despite his many differences of opinion with Putnam, wrote that semantic externalism constituted an "anti-subjectivist revolution" in philosophers' way of seeing the world. Since the time of Descartes, philosophers had been concerned with proving knowledge from the basis of subjective experience. Thanks to Putnam, Tyler Burge and others, Davidson said, philosophy could now take the objective realm for granted and start questioning the alleged "truths" of subjective experience.^[34]

Theory of meaning[link]

Putnam, along with Saul Kripke, Keith Donnellan, and others, contributed to what is known as the causal theory of reference.^[2] In particular, Putnam maintained in The Meaning of "Meaning" that the objects referred to by natural kind terms—such as tiger, water, and tree—are the principal elements of the meaning of such terms. There is a linguistic division of labor, analogous to Adam Smith's economic division of labor, according to which such terms have their references fixed by the "experts" in the particular field of science to which the terms belong. So, for example, the reference of the term "lion" is fixed by the community of zoologists, the reference of the term "elm tree" is fixed by the community of botanists, and the reference of the term "table salt" is fixed as "NaCl" by chemists. These referents are considered rigid designators in the Kripkean sense and are disseminated outward to the linguistic community.^[25]

Putnam specifies a finite sequence of elements (a vector) for the description of the meaning of every term in the language. Such a vector consists of four components:

1. the object to which the term refers, e.g., the object individuated by the chemical formula H₂O;
2. a set of typical descriptions of the term, referred to as "the stereotype", e.g., "transparent", "colorless", and "hydrating";
3. the semantic indicators that place the object into a general category, e.g., "natural kind" and "liquid";
4. the syntactic indicators, e.g., "concrete noun" and "mass noun".

Such a "meaning-vector" provides a description of the reference and use of an expression within a particular linguistic community. It provides the conditions for its correct usage and makes it possible to judge whether a single speaker attributes the appropriate meaning to that expression or whether its use has changed enough to cause a difference in its meaning. According to Putnam, it is legitimate to speak of a change in the meaning of an expression only if the reference of the term, and not its stereotype, has changed. However, since there is no possible algorithm that can determine which aspect—the stereotype or the reference—has changed in a particular case, it is necessary to consider the usage of other expressions of the language.^[25] Since there is no limit to the number of such expressions which must be considered, Putnam embraced a form of semantic holism.^[35]

Philosophy of mathematics[link]

Putnam made a significant contribution to philosophy of mathematics in the Quine–Putnam "indispensability argument" for mathematical realism.^[28] This argument is considered by Stephen Yablo to be one of the most challenging arguments in favor of the acceptance of the existence of abstract mathematical entities, such as numbers and sets.^[36] The form of the argument is as follows.

1. One must have ontological commitments to all entities that are indispensable to the best scientific theories, and to those entities only (commonly referred to as "all and only").
2. Mathematical entities are indispensable to the best scientific theories. Therefore,
3. One must have ontological commitments to mathematical entities.^[37]

The justification for the first premise is the most controversial. Both Putnam and Quine invoke naturalism to justify the exclusion of all non-scientific entities, and hence to defend the "only" part of "all and only". The assertion that "all" entities postulated in scientific theories, including numbers, should be accepted as real is justified by confirmation holism. Since theories are not confirmed in a piecemeal fashion, but as a whole, there is no justification for excluding any of the entities referred to in well-confirmed theories. This puts the nominalist who wishes to exclude the existence of sets and non-Euclidean geometry, but to include the existence of quarks and other undetectable entities of physics, for example, in a difficult position.^[37]

Putnam holds the view that mathematics, like physics and other empirical sciences, uses both strict logical proofs and "quasi-empirical" methods. For example, Fermat's last theorem states that for no integer Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): n>2

are there positive integer values of x, y, and z such that Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): x^n+y^n=z^n

. Before this was proven for all Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): n>2

in 1995 by Andrew Wiles,[38] it had been proven for many values of n. These proofs inspired further research in the area, and formed a quasi-empirical consensus for the theorem. Even though such knowledge is more conjectural than a strictly proven theorem, it was still used in developing other mathematical ideas.[8]

Mathematics and computer science[link]

Putnam has contributed to scientific fields not directly related to his work in philosophy.^[2] As a mathematician, Putnam contributed to the resolution of Hilbert's tenth problem in mathematics. Yuri Matiyasevich had formulated a theorem involving the use of Fibonacci numbers in 1970, which was designed to answer the question of whether there is a general algorithm that can decide whether a given system of Diophantine equations (polynomials with integer coefficients) has a solution among the integers. Putnam, working with Martin Davis and Julia Robinson, demonstrated that Matiyasevich's theorem was sufficient to prove that no such general algorithm can exist. It was therefore shown that David Hilbert's famous tenth problem has no solution.^[13]

In computability theory, Putnam investigated the structure of the ramified analytical hierarchy, its connection with the constructible hierarchy and its Turing degrees. He showed that there exist many levels of the constructible hierarchy which do not add any subsets of the integers^[39] and later, with his student George Boolos, that the first such "non-index" is the ordinal Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \beta_0

of ramified analysis[40] (this is the smallest Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \beta
such that Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): L_\beta
is a model of full second-order comprehension), and also, together with a separate paper with Richard Boyd (another of Putnam's students) and Gustav Hensel,[41] how the Davis–Mostowski–Kleene hyperarithmetical hierarchy of arithmetical degrees can be naturally extended up to Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \beta_0

.

In computer science, Putnam is known for the Davis-Putnam algorithm for the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT), developed with Martin Davis in 1960.^[2] The algorithm finds if there is a set of true or false values that satisfies a given Boolean expression so that the entire expression becomes true. In 1962, they further refined the algorithm with the help of George Logemann and Donald W. Loveland. It became known as the DPLL algorithm. This algorithm is efficient and still forms the basis of most complete SAT solvers.^[12]

Epistemology[link]

A "brain in a vat"—Putnam uses this thought experiment to argue that skeptical scenarios are impossible.

In the field of epistemology, Putnam is known for his "brain in a vat" thought experiment (a modernized version of Descartes' evil demon hypothesis). The argument is that one cannot coherently state that one is a disembodied "brain in a vat" placed there by some "mad scientist".^[9]

This follows from the causal theory of reference. Words always refer to the kinds of things they were coined to refer to, thus the kinds of things their user, or the user's ancestors, experienced. So, if some person, Mary, were a "brain in a vat", whose every experience is received through wiring and other gadgetry created by the "mad scientist", then Mary's idea of a "brain" would not refer to a "real" brain, since she and her linguistic community have never seen such a thing. Rather, she saw something that looked like a brain, but was actually an image fed to her through the wiring. Similarly, her idea of a "vat" would not refer to a "real" vat. So, if, as a "brain in a vat", she were to say "I'm a brain in a vat", she would actually be saying "I'm a brain-image in a vat-image", which is incoherent. On the other hand, if she is not a "brain in a vat", then saying that she is still incoherent, but now because she actually means the opposite. This is a form of epistemological externalism: knowledge or justification depends on factors outside the mind and is not solely determined internally.^[9]

Putnam has clarified that his real target in this argument was never skepticism, but metaphysical realism.^[42] Since realism of this kind assumes the existence of a gap between how man conceives the world and the way the world really is, skeptical scenarios such as this one (or Descartes' Evil demon) present a formidable challenge. Putnam, by arguing that such a scenario is impossible, attempts to show that this notion of a gap between man's concept of the world and the way it is, is in itself absurd. Man cannot have a "God's eye" view of reality. He is limited to his conceptual schemes. Metaphysical realism is therefore false, according to Putnam.^[43]

Metaphilosophy and ontology[link]

In the late 1970s and the 1980s, stimulated by results from mathematical logic and by some ideas of Quine, Putnam abandoned his long-standing defence of metaphysical realism—the view that the categories and structures of the external world are both causally and ontologically independent of the conceptualizations of the human mind. He adopted a rather different view, which he called "internal realism".^[10][44]

Putnam renounced internal realism in his reply to Simon Blackburn in the volume Reading Putnam.^[45] The reasons he gave up his "antirealism" are stated in the first three of his replies in "The Philosophy of Hilary Putnam", an issue of the journal Philosophical Topics, where he gives a history of his use(s) of the term "internal realism", and, at more length, in his The Threefold Cord: Mind, Body and World (1999).^[46]

Internal realism was the view that, although the world may be causally independent of the human mind, the structure of the world—its division into kinds, individuals and categories—is a function of the human mind, and hence the world is not ontologically independent. The general idea is influenced by Kant's idea of the dependence of our knowledge of the world on the "categories of thought".^[47]

The problem with metaphysical realism, according to Putnam, was that it fails to explain the possibility of reference and truth. According to the metaphysical realist, our concepts and categories refer because they match up in some mysterious manner with the pre-structured categories, kinds and individuals that are inherent in the external world. But how is it possible that the world "carves up" into certain structures and categories, the mind carves up the world into its own categories and structures, and the two "carvings" perfectly coincide? The answer must be that the world does not come pre-structured but that structure must be imposed on it by the human mind and its conceptual schemes. In Reason, Truth, and History, Putnam identified truth with what he termed "idealized rational acceptability." The theory, which owes something to C.S. Peirce, is that a belief is true if it would be accepted by anyone under ideal epistemic conditions.^[10]

Nelson Goodman had formulated a similar notion in Fact, Fiction and Forecast in 1956. In that work, Goodman went as far as to suggest that there is "no one world, but many worlds, each created by the human mind."^[48] Putnam rejected this form of social constructivism, but retained the idea that there can be many correct descriptions of reality. No one of these descriptions can be scientifically proven to be the "one, true" description of the world. This does not imply relativism, for Putnam, because not all descriptions are equally correct and the ones that are correct are not determined subjectively.^[49]

Under the influence of C.S. Peirce and William James, Putnam also became convinced that there is no fact–value dichotomy; that is, ethical and aesthetic judgments often have a factual basis, while scientific judgments have an ethical element.^[49]

Neopragmatism and Wittgenstein[link]

At the end of the 1980s, Putnam became increasingly disillusioned with what he perceived as the "scientism" and the rejection of history that characterize modern analytic philosophy. He rejected internal realism because it assumed a "cognitive interface" model of the relation between the mind and the world. Under the increasing influence of James and the pragmatists, he adopted a direct realist view of this relation. For a time, under the influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein, he adopted a pluralist view of philosophy itself and came to view most philosophical problems as nothing more than conceptual or linguistic confusions created by philosophers by using ordinary language out of its original context.^[49]

Many of Putnam's most recent works have addressed the concerns of ordinary people, particularly their concerns about social problems.^[50] For example, he has written about the nature of democracy, social justice and religion. He has discussed the ideas of the continental philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, and has written articles influenced by "continental" ideas.^[14]

Criticism[link]

Putnam himself may be his own most formidable philosophical adversary.^[6] His frequent changes of mind have led him to attack his previous positions. However, many significant criticisms of his views have come from other philosophers and scientists. For example, multiple realizability has been criticized on the grounds that, if it were true, research and experimentation in the neurosciences would be impossible.^[51] According to Bechtel and Mundale, to be able to conduct such research in the neurosciences, universal consistencies must either exist or be assumed to exist in brain structures. It is the similarity (or homology) of brain structures that allows us to generalize across species.^[51] If multiple realizability were an empirical fact, results from experiments conducted on one species of animal (or one organism) would not be meaningful when generalized to explain the behavior of another species (or organism of the same species).^[52] Other criticisms of MR have been proposed by Jaegwon Kim, David Lewis, Robert Richardson and Patricia Churchland.^{[53][54][55][56]}

One of the main arguments against functionalism was formulated by Putnam himself: the Twin Earth thought experiment. However, there have been other criticisms. The Chinese room argument by John Searle (1980) is a direct attack on the claim that thought can be represented as a set of functions. The thought experiment is designed to show that it is possible to mimic intelligent action, without any interpretation or understanding, through the use of a purely functional system. In short, Searle describes a situation in which a person who speaks only English is locked in a room with Chinese symbols in baskets and a rule book in English for moving the symbols around. The person is instructed, by people outside the room, to follow the rule book for sending certain symbols out of the room when given certain symbols. Further, suppose that the people outside the room are Chinese speakers and are communicating with the person inside via the Chinese symbols. According to Searle, it would be absurd to claim that the English speaker inside "knows" Chinese based on these syntactic processes alone. This thought experiment attempts to show that systems that operate merely on syntactic processes cannot realize any semantics (meaning) or intentionality (aboutness). Thus, Searle attacks the idea that thought can be equated with the following of a set of syntactic rules. Thus, functionalism is an inadequate theory of the mind.^[57] Several other arguments against functionalism have been advanced by Ned Block.^[58]

Putnam has consistently adhered to the idea of semantic holism, in spite of the many changes in his other positions. The problems with this position have been described by Michael Dummett, Jerry Fodor, Ernest Lepore, and others. In the first place, they suggest that, if semantic holism is true, it is impossible to understand how a speaker of a language can learn the meaning of an expression, for any expression of the language. Given the limits of our cognitive abilities, we will never be able to master the whole of the English (or any other) language, even based on the (false) assumption that languages are static and immutable entities. Thus, if one must understand all of a natural language to understand a single word or expression, language learning is simply impossible. Semantic holism also fails to explain how two speakers can mean the same thing when using the same linguistic expression, and therefore how any communication at all is possible between them. Given a sentence P, since Fred and Mary have each mastered different parts of the English language and P is related differently to the sentences in each part, the result is that P means one thing for Fred and something else for Mary. Moreover, if a sentence P derives its meaning from its relations with all of the sentences of a language, as soon as the vocabulary of an individual changes by the addition or elimination of a sentence, the totality of relations changes, and therefore also the meaning of P. As this is a common phenomenon, the result is that P has two different meanings in two different moments in the life of the same person. Consequently, if I accept the truth of a sentence and then reject it later on, the meaning of that which I rejected and that which I accepted are completely different and therefore I cannot change my opinions with regard to the same sentences.^[59][60][61]

The brain in a vat argument has also been subject to criticism.^[62] Crispin Wright argues that Putnam's formulation of the brain-in-a-vat scenario is too narrow to refute global skepticism. The possibility that one is a recently disembodied brain in a vat is not undermined by semantic externalism. If a person has lived her entire life outside the vat—speaking the English language and interacting normally with the outside world—prior to her "envatment" by a mad scientist, when she wakes up inside the vat, her words and thoughts (e.g., "tree" and "grass") will still refer to the objects or events in the external world that they referred to before her envatment.^[42] In another scenario, a brain in a vat may be hooked up to a supercomputer that randomly generates perceptual experiences. In this case, one's words and thoughts would not refer to anything, and would therefore be devoid of content. Semantics would no longer exist and the argument would be meaningless.^[63]

In philosophy of mathematics, Stephen Yablo has argued that the Quine–Putnam indispensability thesis does not demonstrate that mathematical entities are truly indispensable. The argumentation is sophisticated, but the upshot is that one can achieve the same logical results by simply replacing all occurrences of the expression "so-and-so exists" (e.g., numbers exist) by occurrences of the expression "so-and-so is assumed (or hypothesized) to exist". For example, one can take the argument for indispensability described above and replace all references to existent entities with references to entities assumed to exist as follows.

1*. One must have ontological commitments to all and only the entities that are assumed to exist and are indispensable to the best scientific theories.

2*. Mathematical entities that are assumed to exist are indispensable to the best scientific theories. Therefore,

3*. One must have ontological commitments to mathematical entities that are assumed to exist.^[36]

Finally, Putnam's internal realism has been accused by Curtis Brown of being a disguised form of subjective idealism. If this is the case, it is subject to the traditional arguments against that position. In particular, it falls into the trap of solipsism. That is, if existence depends on experience, as subjective idealism maintains, and if one's consciousness were to stop existing, then the rest of the universe would stop existing as well.^[47]

Academic genealogy[link]

Major works[link]

• The "Innateness Hypothesis" and Explanatory Models in Linguistics, 1967.^[64]
• Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings. Edited with Paul Benacerraf. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964. 2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. ISBN 0-521-29648-X
• Philosophy of Logic. New York: Harper and Row, 1971. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1972. ISBN 0-04-160009-6
• Mathematics, Matter and Method. Philosophical Papers, vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975. 2nd. ed., 1985 paperback: ISBN 0-521-29550-5
• Mind, Language and Reality. Philosophical Papers, vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975. 2003 paperback: ISBN 0-521-29551-3
• Meaning and the Moral Sciences. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978.
• Reason, Truth, and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. 2004 paperback: ISBN 0-521-29776-1
• Realism and Reason. Philosophical Papers, vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. 2002 paperback: ISBN 0-521-31394-5
• Methodology, Epistemology, and Philosophy of Science: Essays in Honour of Wolfgang Stegmüller. edited with Wilhelm K. Essler and Carl G. Hempel. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1983.
• Epistemology, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science: Essays in Honour of Carl G. Hempel. edited with Wilhelm K. Essler and Wolfgang Stegmüller. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985.
• The Many Faces of Realism. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1987. ISBN 0-8126-9043-5
• Representation and Reality. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988. ISBN 0-262-66074-1
• Realism with a Human Face. edited by James F. Conant. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-674-74945-6
• Renewing Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-674-76094-8
• Pursuits of Reason: Essays in Honor of Stanley Cavell. edited with Ted Cohen and Paul Guyer. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-89672-266-X
• Words and Life. edited by James F. Conant. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-674-95607-9
• Pragmatism: An Open Question. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995. ISBN 0-631-19343-X
• The Threefold Cord: Mind, Body, and World. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-231-10287-9
• Enlightenment and Pragmatism. Assen: Koninklijke Van Gorcum, 2001. 48pp.
• The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. Description. ISBN 0-674-01380-8
• Ethics Without Ontology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-674-01851-6
• Jewish Philosophy as a Guide to Life: Rosenzweig, Buber, Levinas, Wittgenstein. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.
• Philosophy in an Age of Science. edited by Mario De Caro and David Macarthur. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, forthcoming.

Works about Putnam[link]

• Y. Ben-Menahem (ed.), Hilary Putnam, Contemporary Philosophy in Focus, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005.
• P. Clark-B. Hale (eds.), Reading Putnam, Blackwell, Cambridge (Massachusetts)-Oxford 1995.
• C.S. Hill (ed.), The Philosophy of Hilary Putnam, Fayetteville, Arkansas 1992.
• M. Rüdel, Erkenntnistheorie und Pragmatik: Untersuchungen zu Richard Rorty und Hilary Putnam, (Dissertation) Hamburg 1987.
• Maximilian de Gaynesford Hilary Putnam McGill-Queens University Press / Acumen, 2006.

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Logic portal

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers
• Rietdijk–Putnam argument

Notes[link]