Anil K. Gupta (; born 1949) is an

Indian-American Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The United States Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred to ...

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

who works primarily in

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...

philosophy of language In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, ...

, and

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

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

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

. He is also a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) 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 ...

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

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...

in 2019.

Biography

Gupta earned his B.Sc. with first class honours from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

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: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

(1975-1982),

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

(1982-1989),

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universit ...

(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. (; born 1930) is 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 from 1963 until his ret ...

. 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" (shortened as "iff") is a biconditional logical connective between statements, where either both statements are true or both are false. The connective is bicondi ...

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 perceptual experience and the status of perceptual data, in particular how they relate to beliefs about, or knowledge of, the world.cf. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-epi ...

Experience and Reformed Empiricism

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

empiricist In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empir ...

account of the logical relation between perceptual experience and

knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...

. 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 reasons. 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 abil ...

, 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 an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take i ...

, 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 a position which encompasses many varieties such as metaphysical, mathematical, semantic, scientific, moral and epistemic. The term was first articulated by British philosopher Michael Dummett in an argume ...

about commonsense and theoretical objects, and it does not rely on the analytic-synthetic distinction 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 Dictio ...

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, whic ...

. 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 lab at Stanford University that offers a residential postdoctoral fellowship program for scientists and scholars studying "the five core social a ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, 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 web page

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 Distinguished professors in the United States Distinguished professors of philosophy