Petrus Hispanus Lectures 2006 – David Kaplan

29-30 May 2006
The Petrus Hipanus Lectures 2006 are part of the project On Content (POCI/FIL/55562/2004), a research project carried out at the Philosophy Centre of the University of Lisbon, funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, and coordinated by Adriana Silva Graça.

David Kaplan (UCLA)

A distinguished philosopher in logic and semantics, David Kaplan has made fundamental contributions in the fields of logic and philosophy of language. He is a technological innovator and the co-creator of the widely used “Logic 2000” software. Kaplan’s main interests include logic, semantics, epistemology, and metaphysics. He applies his theories to everyday expressions that color our language – like “ouch”, “oops”, and familiar forms of address. His research aims to shed new light on traditional and non-traditional areas in the study of semantics including nicknames, politically correct speech, and sarcasm. A prolific writer, Kaplan has published numerous essays and articles. His more recent publications include: “A Problem in Possible World Semantics” published in the book Modality, Morality and Belief (1995) and “Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics, and Epistemology of Demonstratives and other Indexicals” (1997). Currently, Kaplan is the editor of several scholarly journals, including the Journal of Philosophical Logic and Studies in Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics. He also holds the patents on two devices used in the Polaris submarines’ satellite navigational system. Kaplan received a B.A. in Philosophy in 1956 and a B.A. in Mathematics in 1957, both from UCLA. He has served as Professor of Philosophy at UCLA since 1970, and in 1994 he was named the Hans Reichenbach Professor of Scientific Philosophy. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and the Institut International de Philosophie. Kaplan was Vice President of the Association for Symbolic Logic, from 1973-76, and President of the American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division), from 1980-81. In 2000, he was honored as “Teacher of the Century” by UCLA Today.

 

Lecture 1: Russell’s epistemology of language & mine (I)

Lecture 2: Russell’s epistemology of language & mine (II)