Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Kripke

It's a gossip blog, right? So give us your best Kripke stories here. And how was the thing at the APA?

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

To begin things there's the story about why he left Princeton and the United States for years years on charges of peeping-tom behavior. In the accounts I've heard, he was spotted on a ladder propped against an undergraduate dorm.

Anonymous said...

At once philosophy conference several people were gathered around, drinking and singing. Kripke was invited to join, but declined. Said Kripke: "If I joined, all you'd get is another Kripke anecdote."

Anonymous said...

Wow... As a prospective grad student in phil, I want to know more! Why was there no gossip class in undergrad :(? Well... unless you count the Wittgenstein part of Analytic. That dude was messed up!

Anonymous said...

I heard this third-hand, so take it with three grains of salt. Rumor has it that Kripke approached the NYU faculty and intimated that he would be willing to take a job there if one were offered. NYU is not interested.

Anonymous said...

It's really in bad form to trash-blog someone by name. All of us have had our bad moments that we would prefer to keep private, so let's keep this from becoming personal...

Anonymous said...

Professor I know told our class how he had to pick up Kripke from the airport for a campus visit in Colorado, and while waiting for luggage, Kripke was staring at a young woman's caboose and then started to follow her (rather than stand still and wait for luggage).

Anonymous said...

Anon 9:43 - who hasn't?

Anonymous said...

I have a friend who was assigned (for his GAship) as Kripke's "assistant" several years back. Apparently, from what I was told, and my friend isn't given to exaggeration or embellishment, what his job consisted of was preventing Kripke from doing anything inappropriate when around students and to make sure that he didn't wander off and fail to show up for classes and meetings.

Now to be fair to Kripke, many of us would probably benefit from having someone around doing for us what my friend did for Kripke.

729 said...

These are a few things I've heard about Kripke...

Saul Kripke doesn't read books. He has Chuck Norris read them to him.

In a battle between Chuck Norris and Mr. T, the winner would be Saul Kripke.

Paper beats rock, rock beats scissors, and scissors beats paper, but Saul Kripke beats all 3 at the same time--and also Chuck Norris.

Saul Kripke actually knows the last digit of pi. Who is Chuck Norris trying to kid?

There is no possible world at which Saul Kripke hasn't hunted down and destroyed Chuck Norris.

Saul Kripke does not use spell check. If he happens to misspell a word, Oxford will simply change the actual spelling of it. No one cares about Chuck Norris' misspellings.

If it looks like chicken, tastes like chicken, and feels like chicken but Saul Kripke conceives that it's beef, then it's fucking beef.

While Chuck Norris is credited with creating the universe with a roundhouse kick, we know Saul Kripke set the stage for that event with only the power of his thought.

Anonymous said...

729, that was the funniest thing I've read all week.

Anonymous said...

Take it back to Barrens chat, 729.

Anonymous said...

Anyone wanting further Kripke stories should read Rebecca Goldstein's "The Mind-Body Problem." The central character (I forget his name) is based on Kripke by all accounts (Goldstein was a grad student at Princeton in the 80s). The book is full of odd (and usually incredibly awkward) exchanges between the Kripke character and other folk. Most are, I've been told, based on true stories.

Anonymous said...

here's one.

kripke bought hartry field's "science without numbers" from the princeton bookstore. a week later he tried to take it back and get a refund. the reason? on the back cover, it says, "field shows how to do science without numbers." kripke claimed he claimed field hadn't shown any such thing.

Anonymous said...

I heard Kripke threatened this other philosopher (can't remember who but he is well known) with litigation because he'd ascribed the view to Kripke that a name refers rigidly to its object in all possible worlds rather than a name refers rigidly to its object in all possible worlds IN WHICH THE OBJECT EXISTS. The other man's book was about to be published and he had to have the whole thing pulped under threat of libel.

Dotmavriq said...

I wonder were people source all these claims about Kripke.

Does anyone know where Žižek got his claims for why Kripke would be crazy?