Jerrold Jacob Katz (14 July 19327 February 2002) was an American philosopher and linguist.

Biography

After receiving a PhD in philosophy from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1960, Katz became a Research Associate in Linguistics at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

in 1961. He was appointed Assistant Professor of Philosophy there in 1963, and became Professor in 1969. From 1975 until his death, he was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Linguistics at the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges and seven pro ...

. Within linguistics, Katz is best known for his theory of

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

generative grammar Generative grammar, or generativism , is a linguistic theory that regards linguistics as the study of a hypothesised innate grammatical structure. It is a biological or biologistic modification of earlier structuralist theories of linguisti ...

, which he refers to as the autonomous theory of sense (ATS). Katz was a staunch defender of

rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy' ...

(although not in a Cartesian/

Fregean Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic philo ...

sense) and the metaphysical import of "essences". He argued extensively against the dominance of

empiricism 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 ...

. Katz also argued, against W. V. O. Quine, that 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 ...

could be founded on syntactical features of sentences.Katz, J: ''Where Things Stand Now with the Analytical/Synthetic Distinction''
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Works

*Katz, J. J. & Fodor, J. A. (1963). The structure of a semantic theory. ''Language'', 39(2), Apr–Jun, 170–210. *''The Philosophy of Language'' (1966) *''The Underlying Reality of Language and Its Philosophical Import'' (1971) *''Language and other Abstract Objects'' (1981) *''The Metaphysics of Meaning'' (1990) *''Realistic Rationalism'' (2000) *''Sense, Reference, and Philosophy'' (2004; posthum.)

Notes

References

Obituary (New York Times)
*D. Terence Langendoen (2005). "Katz, Jerrold J. (1932–2002)." In: ''Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'', 2nd edition. Elsevier.

1932 births 2002 deaths Linguists from the United States People from Washington, D.C. Philosophers of language 20th-century linguists 20th-century American philosophers {{US-linguist-stub