Talk:Saul Kripke

Separate article on Kripke's modal logic?

Although the sections on modal logic seem fine as far as I can tell, they might be kind of overwhelming to someone looking for an overview of Kripke's work. Could it be an idea to make this section into a separate article, and to keep the sections shorter in the Kripke article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.177.155.226 (talk) 15:11, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Puzzle about belief

Why is there nothing here on Kripke's "A Puzzle About Belief" paper? It's listed in the list of his publications, but I figure it should have a little paragraph summarizing it a bit. There's pretty much nothing else on Wikipedia about the puzzle. Any objections to having something here? -- Jaymay 18:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC) (Also, why are so many people not signing their names after their posts here?)

I have now written a suggestion. Someone who speaks English natively should take a look at it, though.

Pronunciation

Is it "krip-ka" or "krip-kee"? -- FP ^{<talk><edits>} 14:15, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

krip-kee (sounds like "key") -- User: Astragal

Is this correct? I've heard both ways, but the Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy (2nd edn 2005) has the pronunciation down as "krɪpkə", using the IPA, i.e. more like "krip-ka". Alibangbang (talk) 17:37, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

"Kripke" is pronounced krip-kee. I have the same last name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.111.129.99 (talk) 03:24, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that's certainly some evidence. But you know how names are, often the bearer of a name can pronounce it in an idiosyncratic way. Does anyone know how the man himself pronounces his name? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.48.194.119 (talk) 13:54, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't quite, but in the linked lecture "The meaning of I" the presenter uses Krip-kee too. 19:20, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Nathan Salmon, from whom I took classes from 2004-2006 and who knows Saul Kripke quite well both professionally and personally, always pronounced it "KRIP-key"..

Minor clarifications

Minor clarification/question: were not the "1972 lectures at Princeton" actually delivered in 1970 at Princeton (and first published <in part?> in 1972)?

Edits by User:69.86.61.207

I'm in good faith with the two edits by User:69.86.61.207, but I can't find any info on the internet to back up the claims. I'm just assuming the user is probably a student of Kripke's (the ip is a location in New Yohttp://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/images/button_sig.pngrk, where Kripke teaches). Here are the two edits (italicized):

• Sep 20: (Kripke was roomates) (for a short time) with Theodore Kaczynski (The Unabomber)
• Sep 1: Kripke married (and recently divorced) Margaret Gilbert

Probably no big deal, but I just want to make sure.

--FranksValli 01:08, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

It is not true that Saul Kripke was a roommate at Harvard of Ted Kazinski, the Unabomber. While they attended Harvard at the same time, they only met briefly one time. I have spoken to Saul about this, and he has verified this.

Ned Kripke cousin of Saul Kripke

This is another example of loaded unsourced material and I guess I'm surprised it's stayed this long. Speaking to Kripke is great, but we really need published citations - or else, just leave the information out (which accomplishes the same goal). Further, there is no reason to pull Kripke's family (divorced or otherwise) into the biography without their permission. Since some people regard breaking of marriage vows as a negative, to state someone is divorcing when it's not clear whether they are or are not, and to further introduce the name of another, non-notable (and therefore indefensible-on-Wikipedia) person into the article is not ethical. At least not by the ethics of my profession.--Levalley (talk) 05:15, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Plagiarism issue

We mention the existence of the controversy of the origins of Kripke's ideas in N&N, but don't say anything substantial about it, and we don't even mention the similar Kripgenstein controversy. I'd like to expand on this, but I'd like to give a chance to attract comments beforehand, since the issue cuts deep into the issue of Kripke's prestige. --- Charles Stewart^(talk) 14:51, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I think (I think) the point is overblown. Kripke's apparent debt to Barcan is no bigger than any number of unmentioned debts philosophers have to each other. It's very common for philosophers to defend the same idea, in as different ways as Kripke and Barcan, without this counting as plagiarism.

The paper that is linked to actually illustrates this over-blown-ness fairly well. Most of the sources who (it notes) attribute the new theory of reference to Kripke in fact credit him in a way that would be consistent with this: Kripke is responsible for the prevalence of this new idea: that is, he was the one who convinced everyone that it's true. And to his clear credit here, he convinced people in a way Barcan didn't. (Publishing first is important; so is publiching better.)

What it lacks is serious evidence that Kripke got both the claim and his arguments for it from Barcan; or any evidence that it was Kripke, rather than people writing about Kripke, who claimed that he was the first to say it. If I am not mistaken, this theft-of-ideas point has been pushed entirely by people other than Ruth Barcan Marcus herself--for that matter by people other than major philosophers. Barcan has continued to engage in normal scholarly exchanges with Kripke in her work, with no evidence of animosity--again, so far as I recall. I'm not looking now.

Do you mean by the Kripkenstein controversy the view that Kripke's position in his book misreads Wittgenstein?This does not seem like the same kind of controversy at all, and is a perfectly normal and expectable kind of academic controversy: the claim that someone got something wrong.

Or do you mean the occasional claims that Kripke's views there were significantly anticipated by earlier writers on Wittgenstein, such as Fogelin? My impression was that those claims of theft are thought to have relatively little merit.

Jod

Wrt. Kripgenstein, I mean the Fogelin issue: Fogelin has himself claimed Kripke' conduct was unethical (or at least Quentin Smith said so of his correspondence with Fogelin). It's been a big story, and if not many people agree that Kripke is guilty of straightforward plagiarism, many people do think he has acted unethically. I certainly think it needs more substantial coverage. --- Charles Stewart^(talk) 15:44, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Charles, thanks for being a scholar. This are extremely important questions to ask. Unfortunately, for Wikipedia, the fact that one has asked a pointed question (showing that the person in question isn't as notable as they claim), you must also have critical citations - from published literature. I am finding this same problem on many (possibly most) articles on living or recent philosophers - lots of opinion, no citations. Kripke is important enough, unlike many of the other articles I encounter in my copyediting/philosophy project rounds, that I'll try to find citations to back up your point. I think there's quite a literature on just this problem by now (the fact that Kripke merely restates Wittgenstein and in no way advances W's views, something which it may be that even Kripke himself agrees with, if one looks at the alleged unpublished/apocryphal works of K).--Levalley (talk) 05:54, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Pictures of Kripke

A picture would be nice. I've found an uploaded picture, but for some reason, it isn't here on WP anymore. 70.111.251.203 19:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Probably copyrighted. There are several galleries of public-domain philosopher photos on the Web. I'll take a look.--Lacatosias 08:03, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Pics link

does somebody see any value in the recerntly returned link described "a lot of kripke's pictures"? all i could find there is an uncomfortable site, containing one page with a jpg of 129 photos of the conference participants, which i guess at some point shows some kripke.trespassers william 20:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Saul Kripke Fan Club

Now that 21 year-old user Thesilverbail has reverted my edits, we can all go back to reading that Kripke's influence was substantial and considerable. Even though most of Kripke's work is said to exist only in transcripts and on tapes, we can be sure that there is justification for using adjectives like immensely, significantly, and influential. We will take Thesilverbail's word that Kripke is extensively referred to and has made interesting contributions. We don't have to curb our enthusiasm because we now realize that hyperbole is permitted in a Wikipedia article. Maybe Saul Kripke is the greatest philosopher of our time, if not all time.Lestrade 12:20, 12 May 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

• I'm 24 years old now, and part of my research is in modal logics. I can testify that Kripke (along with Jaakko Hintikka) was immensely influential in this area. "Naming and necessity" introduced the concept of a rigid designator and really did turn the field on its head; I agree with the quote about "making metaphysics respectable again" but couldn't find the source. Hence the cite-needed tag. About the other stuff (like wittgenstein) I have only hearsay to go on that he had considerable influence. Lestrade, if you genuinely know that his work in these areas is of minor significance, you can revert my reverts. Otherwise, I dont think it's POV to say that a scholar has been "influential" and made "interesting contributions", these are statements of fact verifiable by citations, the evidence of terms and ideas he introduced being used or built upon, and the quoted opinions of authorities in the field. Unfortunately this article has none of that yet, which is why i added the general cite tag, but I'll work on it. Cheers, Deepak 18:09, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• I am writing my dissertation in Modal Logic as well; I concur with Deepak. Kripke has been (in my view) the single most important figure in the history of Modal Logic - only R. Marcus would be of comparable depth and impact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.86.124.238 (talk) 13:36, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you are being confused by grammar or something. There are two separate facts: (1) Kripke is the most influential analytic philosopher since Quine. (2) Much of his work is unpublished. Kripke's influence is due to his PUBLISHED works, which makes the fact that he has so much unpublished work all the more tantalizing. Of course, it is unlikely that the unpublished work is consistently of the same standard as Naming and Necessity, but the tantalization remains. If someone wants to give a citation for this, one can cite Soames' history of analytic philosophy, or the introduction to the collection of essays Conceivability and Possibility. Both give good explanations of Kripke's main cause for celebrity, his contribution to the study of the logic and metaphysics of modality. If I recall correctly, even the current edition of 'Naming and Necessity' has a quote on the back by a famous philosopher to the effect that it is one of the most influential yada yada yada. Of coure, one could wonder whether THESE sources are themselves credible, but at that point we'd have to move to an area which Kripke has never worked on, epistemology.

Hidden Treasure

In the "Wittgenstein" section it is written: "Kripke's influence has been substantial, but much of his work, unfortunately, exists only in tape-recorded or transcript forms." This is reminiscent of the device used by Georg Hegel two centuries ago. His wisdom existed mostly in notes that were taken by industrious students who attended his crowded lectures. The world relied on books by other writers who were able to explain the meaning of his substantially influential thoughts.Lestrade 15:09, 15 May 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Curious that you call this a "device used by Hegel" (is Kripke also "using" this device?) Is the implication that Hegel deliberately wrote obscurely to disguise that it was nonsense, and his students convinced everyone otherwise? Because a more neutral expression would have been that this is reminiscent something that also happened with Hegel--happened with him, that is, if you discount the thousands of pages he did publish in his lifetime. Are you trying to be subtle, and clever, in your insinuations? The same facts in varous forms are true of Socrates and Wittgenstein. If not writing enough for User:Lestrade is a criterion of philisophical dishonesty, is there any important branch of philosophy that doesn't include crooks among its revered figures?

No mention of Kripke Model

Hello,

Should not there be any mention of what is known as a Kripke Model? To those of you who do not know, a Kripke Model is a finite state machine where the states are labelled by a set of atomic propositions and the edges are not usually labelled. Kripke Models are used in Model Checking, perhaps someone could edit this page and mention it. I would but I do not know much.

Lesson in Wikipedia Dangers

Here's a good example of the problems that Wikipedia encounters. Anonymous User 82.73.143.146 added the following: "Reportedly, he was invited to come work at Princeton University based on this essay. He replied 'I'm honoured by your proposal, but my mum says I have to finish high-school first.' " What the editor doesn't realize is that Kripke, as a resident of the U.S., would never refer to his mother as "mum." This is a British term. Therefore, it can be safely assumed that the anonymous user is a resident of a British country. This is also evident by the spelling of "honoured." The whole quote was entirely and obviously fabricated.Lestrade 14:29, 28 October 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

No--it's been a running urban legend in philosophy departments for decades; my teachers have told me they heard it when they were students. The anonymous British editor simply wrote it down, unthinking, in his or her natural idiom. Quit being such a prig.

So it's not unreliable, but a running urban legend? I suppose that settles the matter. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 222.144.94.69 (talk) 14:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC).

It might be an Urban legend for people who are very gullible. It seems more likely to be a simple-minded way of emphasizing the fact that Kripke wrote an academic essay while he was a high-school student. Would his mother have told him not to go to Princeton merely because he had not officially graduated from high-school? Lestrade 16:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

In defence of your name-calling you've now descended to psychologizing about Kripke's parents? The original text said "reportedly", and should indeed have been amended to weaken the appearance that it was being aserted as true. But it's not as dumb as you're trying to make out. If someone offered him a job--not university admission, as you seem to think--on the mistaken assumption that he was already a working academic, saying what he's quoted as saying would be a reasonable and clever way for him to correct that misapprehension.

For the record, Kripke has denied this story repeatedly, though I'm not now going to hunt about on the Internet for a citation. It shouldbe mentioned as evidence of the regard in which philosophers hold him--he was, after all, teaching graduate math at MIT, what, three years later?

Locke lectures: Reference and Existence

Searches on amazon.com show this as an out-of-print book that is obviously the same as what is being referred to here. Is it really "unpublished"? Ken Arromdee 02:17, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is unpublished. Amazon has a history of jumping the gun whenever they hear rumours of a book they don't have listed yet.

I have a copy and yooou don't! :) - KSchutte 01:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I do. But I'm actually missing a couple of pages: careless photocopying at some point in its dark history, I suppose. How complete is yours? Does anyone know of a good blackmarket Kripke-transcript exchange program?

Copyright violation

This may seem minor but there are two sentences lifted verbatim from the Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Modal Logic. The two sentences in question are the last two of the Modal Logic section of this wikipedia article. They come from section 11 of that article and occur about a page up from where the bibliography starts. The text right before those two sentences is different and the first sentence lifted is a short one that wouldn't be much of an issue except that it is continuous with a much longer more complicated sentence which has also been lifted without alteration or citation. I haven't checked if there are any other possible violations.

Goldstein's Mind Body Problem?

The article lacks a reference to Rebecca Goldstein's book, the Mind Body Problem, often thought to be about Kripke. Would that be an appropriate addition, given that this is a speculative claim?

Philosophy of mind

The bit on the identity thesis. Does Kripke talk about the identity of mental and physical facts? which seems a confusing appruach. Doesn't he talk about entities or events? My copy is in another country, so I can't check.

Theory of truth

In Kripke it is mandatory to mention his work on the theory of truth: "Outline of a Theory of Truth" The Journal of Philosophy 72 (1975) pp690-716. It opens new ways (non tarskian) for treating truth. O. Trelles (otrelle@pucp.edu.pe)

Then do so.

It's probably mandatory to mention, but it should be better presented than it is now:

"Kripke showed that a language can consistently contain its own truth predicate, which was deemed impossible by Alfred Tarski"

It wasn't as much 'deemed impossible' as PROVED impossible, but under the assumption that every sentence has a truth value.

"Kripke showed how to do this recursively" is also seriously misleeding, Kripke's approach cannot magically produce recursive truth predicates for undecidable theories, the definition of the truth predicate and the proof of the existence of fix points is highly nonconstructive.

Rants

Want to be an analytic philosopher? Just have a daft obsession with the use of words. As to the 'private language argument' which has generated so much academic literature, I can come up with at least 100 more important questions to be considered if I spent time on it. Hundreds of years from now, people will look at the discussion on whether we can have private languages as we look upon medieval debates as to how many angels can stand on the head of a pin.

Having a fun ego trip? What does this have to do with the article here, anyway?

And what's wrong with angels standing on a head of a pin? Apart from the theological question (which you apparently don't appreciate), it's another way of asking "how many points can have the same coordinates". 37.47.232.231 (talk) 18:45, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

I actually think this raises a point. Maybe the article could have more about why this argument is important. What effect's do the conclusions you reach in this argument do to other debates and philisophical questions. Maybe the article could be just a smidgen more aimed for the layman over all as well. It seems to assume a little to much previous knowledge on the readers part.--Case 20:51, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Should it instead be written for people who don't even know where to use apostrophes? Perhaps there should be an article on the private language argument (I haven't looked to see whether there is), and perhaps that should or should not be dumbed down for people too lazy to put a little effort into what they want to learn. (Should the math articles not use numbers and symbols, either?) But neither point touches the fact that information on the broader social relevance of the private language argument has no place in an article devoted to giving the facts about Kripke, (whatever his broader social relevance, either); nor the fact that the post referred to was mean-spirited, jealous, and irrelevant. For your further edification: X's don't "do effects to" Y's; they "have effects on" them. Articles are aimed at, not for, laymen. "Overall" is one word. "Too", not "to", is an adverb. Are you sure you're competent to be judging this question?

Well, that's amusing. You don't have a good answer for a fundamental question about the value of your idol's work, so of course, you go on the attack. If Douglas Hofstadter can take the time to explain why we should care about Kurt Godel, surely it is worth a few lines in Wikipedia to do the same for Kripke. "Why give a rat's ass" is not beyond the scope of an encyclopedia--it's essential context for those just coming to a field. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.251.15.42 (talk) 03:32, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

This article definitely needs a way to show the importance of the issues it encompasses. This can be done, but isn't. It's a problem in several philosophical biographies. The biographies end up presenting quite a bit of philosophy, of course, rather than mere biographical details on their subjects, which is as it should be. However, somehow, these articles need to be brought into (linked to) a larger article on each of the philosophic problems involved. I believe there's an article called Empty Names that deals with the naming thing, not sure if there's a link to it here or how good it is. It's this kind of thing that needs to be done to properly wikify the vast number of philosophy articles that get off to a good start, but then fizzle out or can't quite rise to the challenges of presenting increasingly technical information. I'll try to find a way to link Kripke up to some article on naming, if I can.--Levalley (talk) 16:46, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

A Wittgensteinian Philosopher?

This article places Kripke in Category:Wittgensteinian_philosophers. However, I would question the idea Kripke is a Wittgensteinian philosopher. He has cited W. a few times in his work, but this is not unusual as many, many philosophers who aren't Wittgensteinians do so. His only sustained treatment of Wittgenstein is in his book 'W. on Rules and Private Language', and this is widely considered to be a very bad interpretation of W.'s remarks in the Philosophical Investigations, and hardly Wittgensteinian. His work is certainly of high import in analytic philosophy, but I would argue (and I think I have the force of Wittgenstein scholars behind me) that he is not a Wittgensteinian philosopher in the least.

That said, I'm going to remove Kripke from this category. If anyone really has a problem with this, let me know here and we'll discuss it here. Enigma00 (talk) 22:09, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

For a philosopher to be Wittgensteinian, he would have to philosophize in Wittgenstein's manner. Wittgenstein had different ways, however, of philosophizing at different times of his life. A Wittgensteinian might also be one who agreed with Wittgenstein on the topics that interested Wittgenstein. In either case, Kripke is not a Wittgensteinian philosopher.Lestrade (talk) 02:24, 15 April 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

Is the category encyclopedic at all? I've commented at Category talk:Wittgensteinian philosophers. — Charles Stewart (talk) 08:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Blury distinciton between theory of meaning and causal theory in the Naming and Necessity section

I think that the following passage is a bit misleading: "As an alternative, Kripke adumbrated a causal theory of reference, according to which a name refers to an object by virtue of a causal connection with the object as mediated through communities of speakers. In this way, a name is a rigid designator." Kripke uses rigidity to demonstrate that the meaning of a name is its referent. This doesn't have anything to do with the causal theory as such. Since the distinction between theories of meaning and theories of fixation is so important to Kripke, it should probably be emphasized more in the article.

Religious views and other short sections

First, it just is poor article-writing to have these brief, almost incoherent or incomplete sections appended to an otherwise philosophical article. I do not personally doubt that Kripke has religious views, since no one has corrected that - but I do believe that if he didn't say this in a publication of some kind, it doesn't belong here. The quote from Kripke implies that he's not a materialist (and therefore, if one is a dualist, implies he's an idealist) but being an idealist doesn't make one devoutly Jewish. I'm not sure that statements regarding people's dietary practices or what religion they belong to are relevant in academic biographies, but if the information is to be there, I want citations (as I do for everything). Same goes for his lectures on "I" - that section really dangles and weakens the whole article. Having read quite a bit about Kripke and his life, btw, I find both of these sections a factual stretch. Therefore, again, the need for citations.--Levalley (talk) 05:10, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Work section

I would expect that the requested citation in sentence 1 would cover all the rest of the points in the section. I note a lack of parallelism/consistency among the various "work" sections on academic pages. I'm going to consider this article as standard, in the way it uses this section, but comment is welcome.--Levalley (talk) 05:20, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Claims of intellectual property violations need substantiation

While I agree it's well known (I'm in SoCal) that certain people have distributed Kripke's unpublished manuscripts without his permission, if we're going to claim such a thing, we need citations beyond my (or anyone else's) personal knowledge. Anyone want to publish this somewhere? I'd like to see what happens if you do. But otherwise, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia, either.--Levalley (talk) 05:31, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

On a related note, the claims about Kripke plagiarizing Wittgenstein are published, so we can mention them. I won't edit it until I have the citations on hand in a form I can cut and paste, but the citations are there.--Levalley (talk) 05:57, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Good work on the logic sections

Insofar as I can understand them, they are well done and unlike many Wikis on philosophy, include proper wikification. The bracketed words are appropriate. The article makes sense all through its logic sections, then tends to fall apart on the later sections. So, kudos to the logic people.--Levalley (talk) 05:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Some needed work on this article

Again, this bio is one of the better bios of living academic philosophers. In particular, it does what all good articles should do and shows that the subject is cited in major secondary sources. It does this in the section Naming and Necessity, when it rightfully brings in Quentin Smith's work (and doesn't just say something like: Kripke is influental on Quentin Smith). The names of persons not related to the subject should not be introduced unless there are citations to show their relationship and in general, it's best to mention influences on the subject (with citations). Some citations are still needed in the top sections. There's a problem with headers. The section after Naming and Necessity still appears to be about Naming and Necessity as far as I can tell. The first paragraph of the next section needs to be moved up. That leaves the next section looking thin.--Levalley (talk) 16:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's a good idea to keep adding sections and trying to say more about what Kripke says, when the information isn't cited or up to standards. For example, in the section entitled "Wittgenstein," the first sentence uses peacock words about Kripke. I went and looked at the cited work by David G. Stern - it's online and searchable. I looked at everything Stern said about Kripke in his first chapter (the apparent introduction - there really is no "introduction" as cited, it's Chapter 1. Indeed, Kripke is mentioned in Chapter One (and in a few other places in Stern), but at no time does Stern say that Kripke "is arguably the most influential and widely discussed interpretation of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations," which is where Stern is then referenced. Indeed, Stern is laying out the scope of his book and says he will delay discussing Kripke and his views (which he challenges as much as supports) in Chapter Six. In the meantime, Stern mentions a whole lot of other philosophers. So, in no way does Stern say that "Kripke is arguably..." etc. This is an egregious misuse of reference to support peacock words.Levalley (talk) 16:51, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Removed an odd parenthetical topic sentence: (For alternative readings of Wittgenstein, see Colin McGinn's Wittgenstein on Meaning.) It's not clear why a particular alternative viewpoint should suddenly pop up in the middle of a section on Kripke's views. Perhaps McGinn's work needs to be cited at the end of the Wittgenstein section as a counter-view to Kripke. I'll try to look into this. No one should claim there's a "large secondary literature" without being able to cite some of it. Stern's book, for example, mentions Kripke in passing, but is hardly devoted to discussing Kripke's views. Being mentioned by someone as a result of having published is very different from having secondary literature written about a person. If there are articles on "Kripke's views on Wittgenstein" they very much need to be cited in this section.

This Wittgenstein section is an example of how the article weakens as it proceeds.Levalley (talk) 17:02, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

While it may be the case that some words (I'll list them in a minute) are used in philosophy, they are not ordinary English words and are not in OED or any other standard dictionary. If they're to be used, they should be defined (perhaps they should have a page to themselves, not as dictionary entries of course, but as issues in philosophy - if philosophy needs to invent language, it's good to trace the origin of the terms and how they are used.

The section on Truth wavers between putting scary quotes around truth and not using the quotes. This is confusing. The entire section is confusing to someone who doesn't know what a truth predicate is. Therefore, "truth predicate" should be in brackets, leading to a section on philosophy of language or logic where truth predicates are discussed. Truth predicate should have its own article, anyway - I haven't checked yet to see if it does.Levalley (talk) 17:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

List of words not appearing in the dictionary:

denumerable descriptivist coreferring

There are others, but I could find them easily in other philosophical literature. Coreference might exist as a philosophical term, but it needs elaboration here on Wikipedia, as do the other two terms. Intuitionistic is another term that should be defined or have its own page.

I think the word "adumbrate" is a poor choice for a Wiki (it means to sketch out in shadowy form, to outline a future direction, or to obscure in the dark - whichever meaning it is, it should be clear that Kripke is not presenting a complete theory, putting a fancy word in that means "faintly present/sketch in outline form" makes it sound much more important than it should.Levalley (talk) 17:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The article is very much diminished by the inclusion of the tacked-on two final sections, which are also unsourced. If citations are not forthcoming, I will remove them.--Levalley (talk) 17:30, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The poll by Brian Leiter

According to the last sentence of the first paragraph "a recent poll conducted by philosophers ranked Kripke among the top ten most important philosophers of the past 200 years." The reference directs to a poll on the "Leiter Reports" blog (So who *is* the most important philosopher of the past 200 years?. As far as I can see, the poll was conducted by a single philosopher, professor Brian Leiter. Also, it is not clear by reading the page whether the voters were philosophers, academics, or unknown online visitors. --D15724C710N (talk • contribs) 18:04, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I've edited it to be "among" rather than "by philosophers." I'm fairly certain this is true. Grunge6910 (talk) 21:37, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

There's something unsettling about the poll. Heidegger at 16th, and Frege at 2nd? I'd much prefer the poll conducted amongst American teachers of philosophy at the university level by Donald Lackey in The Philosophical Forum 1999:4, which - while staying with the overall message that Kripke is widely respected - employs a sounder (in my view) methodology. Regards, Wittgendegger (talk) 10:05, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Nearly all of the philosophy done in the english-speaking world is done in the analytic tradition. In that regard, Frege is leaps-and-bounds ahead of Heidegger. Perhaps not in the continental tradition, but since this poll was probably conducted among philosophers in the analytic tradition, it should be no surprise that Frege's viewed much more importantly than Heidegger. He's the founder of the analytic tradition, and the inventor of the logic upon which it's grounded. It surprising that Frege isn't number 1 on this ranking imo. But i think that's mainly due to more people not knowing how important Frege is, and, imo, not knowing that he's been drastically more influential than Wittgenstein. Xenfreak (talk) 00:00, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

How do you pronounce his name?

That's one of the questions which I was asking when I read this. Surely fairly basic biographical information? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.166.50.168 (talk) 19:31, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

KRIP-key. However I don't have a published source on this. It's just the way all philosophers, including ones who knew him personally said it. 47.157.92.143 (talk) 18:25, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Blacklisted Links Found on the Main Page

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Nam

How did he avoid being drafted into the Army and sent to Viet Nam?173.72.111.239 (talk) 01:37, 3 August 2016 (UTC)Hans Wurst

External links modified

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Tim Carlson

May we have a citation for the work of Tim Carlson referred to? 31.52.255.78 (talk) 16:52, 29 January 2018 (UTC)