John Patton Burgess (born 5 June 1948) is an American philosopher. He is John N. Woodhull Professor of

Philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

where he specializes 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 ...

and

philosophy of mathematics The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. It aims to understand the nature and methods of mathematics, and find out the place of mathematics in people's ...

Education and career

Burgess received his Ph.D. from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

's Group in Logic and Methodology of Science. His interests include

and

metaethics In metaphilosophy and ethics, meta-ethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics (questions of how one ought ...

. He is the author of numerous articles on

and

. In 2012, he was elected 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 ...

. He is the brother of

Barbara Burgess Barbara Kathryn Burgess (December 31, 1950 – December 30, 2001) was an American biologist known for her work in the fields of metallobiochemistry and nitrogen fixation. She was a Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at University ...

Selected publications

* 1997. ''A Subject with No Object: Strategies for Nominalistic Reconstrual of Mathematics'' (with

Gideon Rosen Gideon Rosen (born 1962) is an American philosopher. He is a Stuart Professor of Philosophy and the chair of the philosophy department at Princeton University, where he specializes in metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, and ethics. Educat ...

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. * 2005. ''Fixing Frege'',

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial su ...

. * 2007. ''Computability and Logic'' (with

George Boolos George Stephen Boolos (; 4 September 1940 – 27 May 1996) was an American philosopher and a mathematical logician who taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Life Boolos is of Greek-Jewish descent. He graduated with an A.B. in ...

and

Richard C. Jeffrey Richard Carl Jeffrey (August 5, 1926 – November 9, 2002) was an American philosopher, logician, and probability theory, probability theorist. He is best known for developing and championing the philosophy of radical probabilism and the associa ...

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

. * 2008. ''Mathematics, Models, and Modality: Selected Philosophical Essays'', Cambridge University Press. * 2009. ''Philosophical Logic'', Princeton University Press. * 2011. ''Truth'' (with Alexis Burgess), Princeton University Press. * 2013. ''

Saul Kripke Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. He was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and emerit ...

: Puzzles and Mysteries'' . * 2015. ''Rigor and Structure'', Oxford University Press.

References

External links

Home page

John Burgess Video "The Necessity of Origin and the Origin of Necessity", Second Annual Saul Kripke Lecture, The CUNY Graduate Center, November 13th, 2012
American logicians Princeton University faculty Living people Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1948 births {{US-philosopher-stub