Anil K. Gupta (; born 1949) is an

Indian-American Indian Americans are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from India. The terms Asian Indian and East Indian are used to avoid confusion with Native Americans in the United States, who are also referred to as "Indians" or "Am ...

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 ...

who works primarily in

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 ...

epistemology Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...

philosophy of language Philosophy of language refers to the philosophical study of the nature of language. It investigates the relationship between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of Meaning (philosophy), me ...

, and

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...

. Gupta is the Alan Ross Anderson Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

. He is also 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 ...

. His most recent book, ''Conscious Experience: A Logical Inquiry'', was published by

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

in 2019.

Biography

Gupta earned his B.Sc. with first-class honors from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

in 1969. He then attended the University of Pittsburgh where he received his M.A. (1973) and Ph.D. (1977). Gupta has taught at several universities:

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

(1975-1982),

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the Universi ...

(1982-1989),

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 ...

(1989-2000). In 2001 Gupta joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh where he served as Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and, since 2013, as Alan Ross Anderson Chair.

Revision theory

Gupta developed an early version of the revision theory of truth. Later he generalized this to a theory of circular and interdependent definitions. This work was further developed, resulting in the book, ''The Revision Theory of Truth'', co-written with

Nuel Belnap Nuel Dinsmore Belnap Jr. (; May 1, 1930 – June 12, 2024) was an American logician and philosopher who has made contributions to the philosophy of logic, temporal logic, and structural proof theory. He taught at the University of Pittsburgh ...

. The revision theory is a semantic theory of truth that combines an unrestricted truth predicate with classical logic. Revision theory takes truth to be a circular concept, defined by the Tarski biconditionals, :'A' is true

if and only if In logic and related fields such as mathematics and philosophy, "if and only if" (often shortened as "iff") is paraphrased by the biconditional, a logical connective between statements. The biconditional is true in two cases, where either bo ...

A, and interprets it in a new way. Rather than interpret the truth predicate via a single extension, as is done with non-circular predicates, revision theory interprets it via a revision process. The revision process is a collection of revision sequences that result when arbitrary hypotheses concerning the interpretation of truth are revised using a rule provided by the Tarski biconditionals. In the revision process, problematic sentences such as the Liar (“this very sentence is not true”) do not settle on a definite truth value. Remarkably, however, ordinary unproblematic sentences do receive a definite truth value. If problematic types of cross-reference are eliminated from the language, then the revision process converges to a fixed point. Gupta has applied revision theory to rational choice in game theory, building on the work of André Chapuis. Gupta has recently applied the informal ideas of revision theory to problems arising in the

philosophy of perception The philosophy of perception is concerned with the nature of Perception, perceptual experience and the status of sense data, perceptual data, in particular how they relate to beliefs about, or knowledge of, the world.cf. http://plato.stanford.ed ...

Reformed empiricism

In ''Empiricism and Experience'', Gupta proposes a novel

empiricist In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along ...

account of the logical relation between perceptual experience and

knowledge Knowledge is an Declarative knowledge, awareness of facts, a Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with individuals and situations, or a Procedural knowledge, practical skill. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is oft ...

. The problem Gupta addresses is that of explaining the role of experience in making our views and, in particular, perceptual judgments rational. Gupta's proposal is that the given in experience is hypothetical. Rather than providing perceptual judgments with categorical

rationality Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reason. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do, or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ab ...

, experience confers on these judgments a conditional rationality. A perceptual experience, according to Gupta, makes a subject's judgment rational if the subject's antecedent view is rational. An antecedent view is the collection of

beliefs A belief is a subjective Attitude (psychology), attitude that something is truth, true or a State of affairs (philosophy), state of affairs is the case. A subjective attitude is a mental state of having some Life stance, stance, take, or opinion ...

, conceptions, and concepts that the subject of an experience brings to bear on the experience. Gupta uses the notion of the hypothetical given to build a reformed empiricism. He argues that this empiricism has significant advantages over the traditional versions of the view. Among other features, Gupta's empiricism does not require the acceptance of an

anti-realism In analytic philosophy, anti-realism is the position that the truth of a statement rests on its demonstrability through internal logic mechanisms, such as the context principle or intuitionistic logic, in direct opposition to the realist notion t ...

about commonsense and theoretical objects, and it does not rely on the

analytic–synthetic distinction The analytic–synthetic distinction is a semantic distinction used primarily in philosophy to distinguish between propositions (in particular, statements that are affirmative subject– predicate judgments) that are of two types: analytic propos ...

to do any substantive work. Finally, Gupta argues that his reformed empiricism incorporates plausible components of both

foundationalism Foundationalism concerns philosophical theories of knowledge resting upon non-inferential justified belief, or some secure foundation of certainty such as a conclusion inferred from a basis of sound premises.Simon Blackburn, ''The Oxford Dict ...

and

coherentism In philosophical epistemology, there are two types of coherentism: the coherence theory of truth, and the coherence theory of justification (also known as epistemic coherentism). Coherent truth is divided between an anthropological approach, w ...

. In ''Conscious Experience: A Logical Inquiry'', Gupta enriches reformed empiricism with an account of empirical dialectic. This account includes an explanation of (1) how empirical reasoning can force a radical transformation of view and (2) how experience contributes to the content of empirical concepts. The latter, which is based on a theory of ostensive definitions, provides a demarcation of legitimate empirical critiques of concepts.

Honors and awards

* A.C.L.S. Fellowship, 1988–89; 2003–2004 * N.E.H. Fellowship for University Teachers, 1988–1989; 2003–2004; 2010 * Fellow,

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) is an interdisciplinary research institution at Stanford University designed to advance the frontiers of knowledge about human behavior and society, and contribute to the resoluti ...

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 ...

, 1998–1999 * Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences * Recipient, 225th Anniversary Medallion of the University of Pittsburgh, 2013 * Simon Lectures, University of Toronto, 2007 * Whitehead Lectures, Harvard University, 2012

Select publications

Modal Logic and Truth (1978).
''Journal of Philosophical Logic'' 7 (1):441–472. * ''The Logic of Common Nouns: An Investigation in Quantified Modal Logic'' (1980). Yale University Press.
Truth and Paradox (1982)
''Journal of Philosophical Logic'' 11: 1-60. * The Meaning of Truth (1987). In Ernest Lepore (ed.), ''New Directions in Semantics''. Academic Press 453–480.
Remarks on Definitions and the Concept of Truth (1988).
''Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society'' 89:227–246. * ''The Revision Theory of Truth'' (written with Nuel Belnap) (1993). MIT Press.
Minimalism (1993)
''Philosophical Perspectives'' 7: 359–369 * ''Empiricism and Experience'' (2006). Oxford University Press.
Equivalence, Reliability, and Convergence: Replies to McDowell, Peacocke, and Neta (2009)
''Philosophy and Phenomenological Research'' 79: 490–508. * ''Truth, Meaning, Experience'' (2011). Oxford University Press.''Truth, Meaning, Experience'' Oxford University Press page
/ref>
An Account of Conscious Experience (2012).
''Analytic Philosophy'' 53: 1-29.
The Relationship of Experience to Thought (2013).
''The Monist'' 96 (2):252-294.
Conditionals in Theories of Truth (2017)
(written with Shawn Standefer), ''Journal of Philosophical Logic'' 46: 27-63.
''Conscious Experience: A Logical Inquiry'' (2019).
Harvard University Press.

References

External links

Gupta's personal website

Gupta's profile at the University of Pittsburgh

Gupta's profile on Philpapers.org

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on the Revision Theory of Truth

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews entry on ''Empiricism and Experience''

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews entry on ''Truth, Meaning, Experience''

Interview with 3:AM Magazine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gupta, Anil 21st-century Indian philosophers Analytic philosophers Indian logicians 1949 births 20th-century Indian philosophers University of Pittsburgh faculty Epistemologists Empiricists Living people American male writers of Indian descent American philosophy academics