Richard Ladd Kirkham (born June 18, 1955) is an American
philosopher
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
. Among his published works are ''Theories of Truth'' (his most-cited work, published by
MIT Press
The MIT Press is the university press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT Press publishes a number of academic journals and has been a pioneer in the Open Ac ...
in 1992), "Does the Gettier Problem Rest on a Mistake?" ''
Mind
The mind is that which thinks, feels, perceives, imagines, remembers, and wills. It covers the totality of mental phenomena, including both conscious processes, through which an individual is aware of external and internal circumstances ...
'' (1984. Vol. 93, No. 372), and "On Paradoxes and a Surprise Exam" ''Philosophia'' (1991).
Education
Kirkham graduated from
Cornell College in 1977 and received his Ph.D. from the
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac (known simply as Notre Dame; ; ND) is a Private university, private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. Founded in 1842 by members of the Congregation of Holy Cross, a Cathol ...
in 1983.
Philosophical work
Kirkham is probably best known for his work on analytic theories of truth. His 1992 book ''Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction'' was received positively upon release.
[For examples, see Carlin Romano, ''If there are philosopher-kings, why not philosopher-journalists?'' Boston Sunday Globe, 12/5/1993, p. B21 (Boston, MA): "excellent new book" and Frederick F Schmidt, ''Truth: A Primer'', Westview Press: 1995.] In the book, Kirkham proposes that the various theories of truth proposed through the centuries are really not all in competition with one another after all, because they are often intended to answer distinct questions about truth. For example, some have been intended only to provide the extensional necessary and sufficient conditions for truth, while others have been intended to provide a definition of truth, and still others are intended only to explain the linguistic and non-linguistic purposes of statements that predicate truth or falsity. According to MIT Press, this book is their all-time best-selling work in
analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a broad movement within Western philosophy, especially English-speaking world, anglophone philosophy, focused on analysis as a philosophical method; clarity of prose; rigor in arguments; and making use of formal logic, mat ...
and nearly half of all English-reading professional philosophers in the world own a personal copy of the book. It has been used as a text in graduate seminars on every inhabited continent and translated into Portuguese and Russian.
He is also the author of four articles in the ''
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The ''Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' is an encyclopedia of philosophy edited by Edward Craig that was first published by Routledge in 1998. Originally published in both 10 volumes of print and as a CD-ROM, in 2002 it was made available on ...
'' (Routledge, 1998).
See also
*
American philosophy
American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can neverthe ...
*
Gettier problem
*
Liar paradox
In philosophy and logic, the classical liar paradox or liar's paradox or antinomy of the liar is the statement of a liar that they are lying: for instance, declaring that "I am lying". If the liar is indeed lying, then the liar is telling the trut ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kirkham, Richard
1955 births
Living people
21st-century American philosophers
University of Notre Dame alumni