The Saul Kripke Center is pleased to announce that Nils Kürbis (Bochum) and Heinrich Wansing (Bochum) will deliver talks on Wednesday, June 11th, 2025, at the CUNY Graduate Center (Room 9207). The talks are free and open to all.

Title (1): A Theory of Definite Descriptions for Modal Logic

Time (1): 2:00 to 3:00 pm

Speaker (1): Nils Kürbis (Bochum)

Abstract (1): I’ll present a theory of definite descriptions in positive free logic, where definite descriptions ‘the F’ are formalised as in the context of complete sentences ‘The F is G’ by a binary quantifier as Ix(F, G). Formalised in natural deduction or sequent calculus, the theory satisfies certain proof-theoretic requirements demanded by proof theoretic semantics. Thus the meaning of I can be taken to be defined by its rules of inference. Positive free logic has been fruitfully applied in quantified modal logic. So I’ll consider what happens when modal operators are added. It turns out that the semantic clauses for Ix(F, G) are exactly those of Fitting and Mendelsohn (First Order Modal Logic, 2nd edition, Springer 2023), except that they formalise ‘The F is G’ by the iota operator for ‘the’ and the lambda for predicate abstraction to mark scope. I’ll end the talk with a brief comparison between the two systems.

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Title (2): Solving a New Paradox of Deontic Logic (and a dozen other paradoxes) with RNmatrices for MC-based Modal Logics

Time (2): 3:00 to 4:00 pm

Speaker (2): Heinrich Wansing (Bochum) [joint work with Daniel Skurt (Bochum)]

Abstract (2): In this paper, we present RNmatrices (restricted non-deterministc matrices) for normal and non-normal modal expansions of the material connexive logic MC. We introduce and solve a paradox of deontic logic that to the best of our knowledge has not yet been been discussed in the literature and that justifies the use of a connexive, and actually hyperconnexive, non-modal base logic.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the first publication of Saul Kripke’s influential paper, “Outline of a Theory of Truth”, the Saul Kripke Center will host a major international conference on theories of truth at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City on November 20 and 21, 2025. Conference speakers include:

1. 1. Eduardo Barrio (Buenos Aires)
   2. Hartry Field (NYU)
   3. Michael Glanzberg (Rutgers)
   4. Leon Horsten (Konstanz)
   5. Carlo Nicolai (KCL)
   6. Lavinia Picollo (NUS)
   7. Graham Priest (CUNY)
   8. Lorenzo Rossi (Turin)
   9. James Walsh (NYU)

The Saul Kripke Center is pleased to announce that Kit Fine (Silver Professor and University Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics at NYU) will deliver the 6th Saul Kripke Lecture on October 31st, 2024, from 4:00 to 6:30 pm. The talk is free and open to all, and will be held in-person only at the CUNY Graduate Center (Room C198).

Title: The Myth of the Ungiven

Abstract: The notion of a borderline case has been thought to be central to our understanding of vagueness. I shall argue that there is no intelligible notion that can play this role and that an alternative framework for understanding vagueness needs to be found.

The Saul Kripke Center is pleased to announce that James Walsh (Assistant Professor, Philosophy, NYU) will deliver a talk on Friday, May 10th, 2024, from 4:15 to 6:15 pm at the CUNY Graduate Center (Room 9207). The talk is free and open to all.

Title: Modal definability and Kripke’s theory of truth

Abstract: In Outline of a Theory of Truth, Kripke introduces some of the central concepts of the logical study of truth and paradox. He informally defines some of these–such as groundedness and paradoxicality–using modal locutions. We introduce a modal language for regimenting Kripke’s informal definitions and characterize the modally definable sets. Though groundedness and paradoxicality are expressible in the modal language, we prove that intrinsicality–which Kripke emphasizes but does not define modally–is not.

Zoom Access: please follow this link.

The Saul Kripke Center is pleased to announce that C. L. Johnson (PhD student, Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center) will deliver the tenth Saul Kripke Center Young Scholars Series talk on Thursday, February 22, 2024, from 4:15 to 6:15 pm at the CUNY Graduate Center (Room C197). The talk is free and open to all.

Title: On the existence of all possible worlds

Abstract: Why is there something rather than nothing? In “Why Anything? Why This?”, Derek Parfit canvasses several ultimate explanations for existence and their pitfalls, conceding that the possibility for any cogent answer to the question is unlikely. I nevertheless provide such an explanation first by enumerating foundational assumptions common to most, if not all, explanations. From these assumptions, I argue against two popular views regarding the existence of our world: (1) the existence of a necessary being responsible for our world’s creation and (2) the brute existence of our world. Then, by developing an account against the coherence of nothingness, I critique the possibility of Absolute Nothingness, the view that the simplest reality is one devoid of anything. In so doing, I underscore the difference between ontological and explanatory simplicity, showing that though a finite reality (in either the number of worlds or scope) is ontologically simpler than an infinite one (in both number and scope), such a finitude is explanatorily more complex and arbitrary. I then argue that an unbounded Maximality of infinitely many, spatiotemporally disconnected worlds (the opposite of Absolute Nothingness) is the simplest ground (or default state) for our existence, effectively requiring no further explanation.

The Saul Kripke Center will host a memorial conference honoring Saul Kripke (1940-2022) at The CUNY Graduate Center on May 8th and 9th, 2023. The conference program is available here. Registration for attending in person is not required, but attendees will have to comply with the Graduate Center’s Building Access Policy. Although the conference will be a mainly in person event, a livestream is also available; for this, please register.

The Saul Kripke Center is pleased to announce that a conference celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first publication of Saul Kripke’s masterpiece, Naming and Necessity, will be held at the CUNY Graduate Center on December 12th and 13th. For registration and additional details, please consult philevents.org/event/show/103858, the book of abstracts, and the schedule.

Saul Kripke and the Saul Kripke Center participated in a conference and celebration in Hudson, NY (7/19/22-7/22/22) marking the 50th anniversary of the first publication of Naming and Necessity.

Professor Saul Kripke will revisit Naming and Necessity as the keynote speaker at the 2nd Annual Undergraduate Philosophy Conference at NYU on May 1st, 2022. Find details here.  

The Saul Kripke Center is pleased to announce that Michael Hillas (PhD student, Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center) will deliver the ninth Saul Kripke Center Young Scholars Series talk on Thursday, April 7, 2022, from 4:00 to 6:00 pm (NY time) via Zoom. The talk is free and open to all, but those interested in attending should email the Saul Kripke Center in advance to register if they are not already on the Saul Kripke Center’s mailing list.

Title: Logic is All Skill: A Response to Devitt and Roberts on Adoption

Abstract: In Devitt and Roberts’ “Changing Our Logic: A Quinean Perspective” the authors give a neo-Quinean (in a particular sense of neo-Quinean) defense of adoption in logic. To a degree this is a non-defense – they concede that some may not take them as providing an account of rational adoption, but suggest that this is primarily because skill acquisition is not rational more generally, at least in the manner that we may have been hoping it was. However their work tries to establish that there is a large degree to which adoption is possible. My project here will be a critique of the paper on its own terms, accepting for the sake of discourse the core assumptions of the approach proposed. I will go through the examples that are used by Devitt and Roberts and show that even if their assumptions are accepted, their conclusions do not all follow. The conclusion of these arguments will be that Devitt and Roberts are better off embracing the irrationality of skill acquisition, and the consequence that rational adoption is impossible.