John Richard Perry (born 1943) is Henry Waldgrave Stuart Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Stanford University and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban distr ...

. He has made significant contributions to philosophy in the fields of

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, ...

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 ...

, and

philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are add ...

. He is known primarily for his work on situation semantics (together with

Jon Barwise Kenneth Jon Barwise (; June 29, 1942 – March 5, 2000) was an American mathematician, philosopher and logician who proposed some fundamental revisions to the way that logic is understood and used. Education and career Born in Independence, ...

), reflexivity, indexicality,

personal identity Personal identity is the unique numerical identity of a person over time. Discussions regarding personal identity typically aim to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another time ca ...

, and self-knowledge.

Life and career

John Perry was born in

Lincoln, Nebraska Lincoln is the capital city of the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Lancaster County. The city covers with a population of 292,657 in 2021. It is the second-most populous city in Nebraska and the 73rd-largest in the United Sta ...

on January 16, 1943. He received his B.A. in philosophy from

Doane College Doane University is a private university in Crete, Nebraska. It has additional campuses in Lincoln and Omaha, as well as online programs. History Doane College was founded on July 11, 1872, by Thomas Doane, chief civil engineer for the Burling ...

in 1964. And he received his Ph.D. in philosophy from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

in 1968 with a dissertation on "Identity." The latter was taken under the supervision of Sydney Shoemaker. He taught philosophy at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

, before joining the faculty at Stanford University where he is Henry Waldgrave Professor of Philosophy Emeritus. He subsequently taught at the

, where he is now Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus. He was awarded the

Jean Nicod Prize The Jean Nicod Prize is awarded annually in Paris to a leading philosopher of mind or philosophically oriented cognitive scientist. The lectures are organized by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique as part of its effort to promote int ...

in 1999. He is a member 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, a ...

and the

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick Unive ...

. He was co-host of '' Philosophy Talk,'' a nationally syndicated radio program which he co-founded with Kenneth Taylor in 2004. He is also part of the Center for the Study of Language and Information ( CSLI)—an independent research center founded in 1983.

Philosophical work

Perry has made contributions to many areas of philosophy, including

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 premise ...

, and

. Perry's 1978 book '' A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality'' deals with standard problems in the theory of

in the form of a dialogue between a mortally wounded university professor, Gretchen Weirob, and her two friends, Sam Miller and Dave Cohen. The views represented include those of Bernard Williams, John Locke, and Derek Parfit. The format of associating different philosophical positions with different characters in a dialogue recalls

David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...

's '' Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion''. In logic, Perry and

are known for discussion of the slingshot argument, especially in their 1981 article "Semantic Innocence and Uncompromising Situations". In his 2001 book ''Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness'', Perry argues for what he calls "antecedent physicalism", according to which physicalism is antecedently taken to be a plausible and reasonable position, provided that there are no better rival theories. Thus, Perry defends a version of type physicalism against three major philosophical arguments for dualism: the zombie argument, the knowledge argument, and the modal argument. Perry also produces non-technical work that reaches a wider audience, such as his humorous 1996 online essay entitled "Structured Procrastination". Perry was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in Literature for this essay in 2011. It states that " be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that's even more important".

''The Problem of the Essential Indexical''

In 1979, Perry published "The Problem of the Essential Indexical" in which he combined his work on philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. Essential indexicals (I, here, and now) are parts of language that cannot be paraphrased away. They are seen as locating beliefs and are essential to understand the speaker's belief. Perry presents a now famous example to illustrate his point:

"I once followed a trail of sugar on a supermarket floor, pushing my cart down the aisle on one side of a tall counter and back the aisle on the other, seeking the shopper with the torn sack to tell him he was making a mess. With each trip around the counter, the trail became thicker. But I seemed unable to catch up. Finally it dawned on me. I was the shopper I was trying to catch."

In this example, the pronoun "I" is essentially indexical because it allowed Perry to realize that it was he himself making the mess. This realization caused him to change his behavior. Essential indexicals create the impetus for action. They cannot be paraphrased away while retaining their immediacy. If Perry were to say "Perry realized that Perry was making a mess", it would still not be essentially indexical because Perry would still have to understand that he himself is Perry. Without that extra step, there would be no reason for him to change his action. "I" is the only essential indexical in that situation.

Selected bibliography

Books

* (1978) '' A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality''. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. * (1983) '' Situations and Attitudes'' (with Jon Barwise). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Bradford Books/MIT Press. (Reprinted with a new introduction by CSLI Publications, 1999.) * (1993) ''The Problem of the Essential Indexical and Other Essays''. New York: Oxford University Press. (Enlarged edition, Stanford: CSLI Publications, 2000.) * (1999) '' Dialogue on Good, Evil and the Existence of God''. Cambridge/Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. * (2001) '' Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness''. Cambridge, Massachusetts.: Bradford-MIT. * (2001) ''Reference and Reflexivity''. Stanford: CSLI Publications. * (2002) ''Identity, Personal Identity and the Self'', Selected Essays. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. * (2011) ''Critical Pragmatics'' (with Kepa Korta). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * (2012) '' The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing'' * (2018) ''Dialogue on Consciousness: Minds, Brains, and Zombies,'' Hackett Publishing, 2018. * (2019) ''Frege's Detour''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. * (2019) ''Studies in Language and Information''. CSLI Publications. * (2020) ''Revisiting the Essential Indexical''. CSLI Publications.

Articles

* (1972
"Can The Self Divide?"
''Journal of Philosophy'', LXIX, no. 16, pp. 463 – 88. * (1977
"Frege on Demonstratives".
''The Philosophical Review'', Vol. 86, No. 4., pp. 474–497. * (1979
"The Problem of the Essential Indexical"
''Noûs'' 13, no. 1: 3 – 21. * (1980
"A Problem about Continued Belief".
''Pacific Philosophical Quarterly'' 61, no. 4, pp. 317 – 22. * (1980
"Belief and Acceptance"
''Midwest Studies in Philosophy'' V, pp. 533 – 42. * (1981
"Semantic Innocence and Uncompromising Situations"
(with Jon Barwise). ''Midwest Studies in Philosophy'' VI, pp. 387 – 403. * (1981
"Situations and Attitudes"
(with Jon Barwise). ''Journal of Philosophy'' LXXVII, no. 1, pp. 668 – 91. * (1986
"From Worlds to Situations".
''Journal of Philosophical Logic'' 15, pp. 83 – 107. * (1986
"Thought Without Representation".
''Supplementary Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society'', vol. 60, pp. 263 – 83. * (1988
"Cognitive Significance and New Theories of Reference".
''Noûs'' 2, no. 2, pp. 1 – 18. * (1989
"The Prince and the Phonebooth: Reporting Puzzling Beliefs"
(with Mark Crimmins). ''Journal of Philosophy'', pp. 685 – 711. * (1993
"Executions, Motivations and Accomplishments"
(with David Israel and Syun Tutiya). ''The Philosophical Review'', pp. 515 – 40. * (1994
"Fodor and Lepore on Holism"
''Philosophical Studies'', 73, pp. 123–138.

Notes

External links

John Perry, Stanford Philosophy

John Perry’s Web Page

structured procrastination
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perry, John 1943 births 20th-century American philosophers 20th-century essayists 21st-century American philosophers 21st-century essayists American ethicists American logicians American male essayists American male non-fiction writers American philosophy academics Analytic philosophers American consciousness researchers and theorists Cornell University alumni Doane University alumni Epistemologists Jean Nicod Prize laureates Living people Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Metaphysics writers Ontologists Philosophers of ethics and morality Philosophers of language Philosophers of mind Philosophers of religion Philosophers of social science Philosophy writers Physicalism Stanford University Department of Philosophy faculty Writers about religion and science 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers