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About the
author of Wittgenstein on Rules and Private
Language, |
Saul Kripke was (see below) McCosh Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. He is a philosopher of international reputation, in large part because of his work in modal logic. The description of Kripke that I find most apt is that he is the Bobby Fischer of philosophy. His other main work, Naming and Necessity, was no less controversial and stimulating than WRPL. The following, although written about Naming and Necessity, could just as well be said of WRPL:
"When these lectures were first published eight years ago, they stood analytic philosophy on its ear. Everybody was either furious, or exhilarated, or thoroughly perplexed. No one was indifferent."
London Review of Books
Despite the volumes that have been written on WRPL, Kripke has remained strangely but perhaps characteristically silent about the whole affair. Maybe, like the early Wittgenstein thought of his first book, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, Kripke believes that the book speaks for itself and nothing more can or needs to be said. For more biographical information on Saul Kripke, click here. For an interesting account of a controversy about the originality of the ideas in Kripke's Naming and Necessity, along with info and anecdotes about Kripke in general, click here.
UPDATE: Kripke transferred to emeritus status for the 1997-98 school year. For info, click here.