Kenneth Jon Barwise (; June 29, 1942 – March 5, 2000) was an American
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...
,
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 ...
and
logician who proposed some fundamental revisions to the way that
logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...
is understood and used.
Education and career
He was born in
Independence, Missouri
Independence is a city in and one of two county seats of Jackson County, Missouri, United States. It is a satellite city of Kansas City, Missouri, and is the largest suburb on the Missouri side of the Kansas City metropolitan area. In 2020 Unite ...
, to Kenneth T. and Evelyn Barwise.
A pupil of
Solomon Feferman
Solomon Feferman (December 13, 1928July 26, 2016) was an American philosopher and mathematician who worked in mathematical logic. In addition to his prolific technical work in proof theory, computability theory, and set theory, he was known for h ...
at
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
, Barwise started his research in
infinitary logic
An infinitary logic is a logic that allows infinitely long statements and/or infinitely long proofs. The concept was introduced by Zermelo in the 1930s.
Some infinitary logics may have different properties from those of standard first-order lo ...
. After positions as assistant professor at
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
and the
University of Wisconsin
A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...
, during which time his interests turned to
natural language
A natural language or ordinary language is a language that occurs naturally in a human community by a process of use, repetition, and change. It can take different forms, typically either a spoken language or a sign language. Natural languages ...
, he returned to Stanford in 1983 to direct the
Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI). He began teaching at
Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...
in 1990. He was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
in 1999.
In his last year, Barwise was invited to give the 2000
Gödel Lecture; he died prior to the lecture.
Philosophical and logical work
Barwise contended that, by being explicit about the context in which a
proposition
A proposition is a statement that can be either true or false. It is a central concept in the philosophy of language, semantics, logic, and related fields. Propositions are the object s denoted by declarative sentences; for example, "The sky ...
is made, the ''
situation'', many problems in the application of logic can be eliminated. He sought ''... to understand meaning and inference within a general theory of information, one that takes us outside the realm of sentences and relations between sentences of any language, natural or formal.'' In particular, he claimed that such an approach resolved the
liar paradox. He made use of
Peter Aczel's
non-well-founded set theory in understanding "
vicious circles" of reasoning.
Barwise, along with his former colleague at Stanford
John Etchemendy
John W. Etchemendy (born 1952) is an American logician and philosopher who served as Stanford University's twelfth Provost (education), Provost. He succeeded John L. Hennessy to the post on September 1, 2000 and stepped down on January 31, 2017 ...
, was the author of the popular logic textbook ''
Language, Proof and Logic''. Unlike the ''
Handbook of Mathematical Logic'', which was a survey of the state of the art of
mathematical logic
Mathematical logic is the study of Logic#Formal logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory (also known as computability theory). Research in mathematical logic com ...
circa 1975, and of which he was the editor, this work targeted elementary logic. The text is notable for including computer-aided homework problems, some of which provide visual representations of logical problems. During his time at Stanford, he was also the first Director of the
Symbolic Systems Program, an interdepartmental degree program focusing on the relationships between cognition, language, logic, and computation.
The K. Jon Barwise Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Symbolic Systems Program has been given periodically since 2001.
Selected publications
*Barwise, K. J. (1975) ''
Admissible Sets and Structures. An Approach to Definability Theory''
*Barwise, K. J. &
Perry, John (1983)
''Situations and Attitudes''. Cambridge: MIT Press.
*Barwise, K. J. & Etchemendy, J. (1987) ''
The Liar: An Essay in Truth and Circularity''
*Barwise, K. J. (1988) ''
The Situation in Logic''
*Barwise, K. J. & Moss, L. (1996) ''
Vicious Circles. On the Mathematics of Non-Wellfounded Phenomena''
*Barwise, K, J. & Seligman, J. (1997) ''
Information Flow: the Logic of Distributed Systems''
*Barwise, K. J. & Etchemendy, J. (2002) ''
Language, Proof and Logic''
*Barwise, K. J. Editor (1977) ''Handbook of Mathematical Logic''. xi+1165 pages
*Barwise, J. & Feferman, S. Editors (1985) ''Model-Theoretic Logics''. x+893 pages
See also
*
Barwise Prize
*
Barwise compactness theorem
*
Slingshot argument
References
External links
''In Memoriam'': Kenneth Jon Barwise by Solomon Feferman''The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic'' vol. 6(4) Dec. 2000, pp505–8 (
PostScript
PostScript (PS) is a page description language and dynamically typed, stack-based programming language. It is most commonly used in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm, but as a Turing complete programming language, it c ...
)
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barwise, Jon
1942 births
2000 deaths
20th-century American mathematicians
20th-century American philosophers
20th-century American essayists
American male essayists
American male non-fiction writers
American philosophy academics
Deaths from colorectal cancer in the United States
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Indiana University faculty
Mathematical logicians
Mathematicians from Missouri
American philosophers of logic
American philosophers of mathematics
Stanford University alumni
Stanford University Department of Philosophy faculty
University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty
Writers from Independence, Missouri
Yale University faculty
20th-century American male writers