In a message dated 8/15/2015 4:01:09 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
rpaul@xxxxxxxx writes in "Jaako Hintikka":
http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2015/08/in-memoriam-jaakko-hintikka-19
29-2015.html
Interesting.
Some running commentary:
Jaakko Hintikka was born in Vantaa, Helsinki, Finland.
Hintikka studied mathematics with Rolf Nevanlinna and philosophy with
Georg Henrik von Wright at the University of Helsinki where defended his
doctoral dissertation on distributive normal forms.
So we see the cross-reference mathematics -- as per mathematics logic, that
today, for example, is taught at Oxford not within the Sub-Faculty of
Philosophy but across the street, so that people enrolled in disciplines other
than Philosophy can attend. The chair is called "Mathematical logic" -- and
philosophy.
Grice loved Wright and he borrowed from him (but never returned) the word
'alethic'. That Hintikka was inspired by these two people (and these two
fields: mathematical logic and philosophy -- moral theory --) to write his
essay on 'distributive normal forms' is interesting.
Geary commented: "A distributive normal form is not as normal as it
seems," and adds with sarcasm: "especially if you catch it undistributed!".
After his Ph.D. studies Hintikka worked as junior fellow at Harvard and
became (independently of Stig Kanger) the founder of possible world
semantics.
The keyterm is Leibniz, as in Leibniz's world: the best of all possible
worlds. Woody Allen (who wrote "Irrational man") and Barrett (who wrote
"Irrational man") have something to say about this, because Leibniz is
concerned
with the "best" (morally best) of all possible worlds and Lucas (the
character in Allen's film fallaciously thinks he has discovered it!).
Hintikka's
treatment is more abstract: he uses subindexes w1 w2 w3 wn to represent
each world. Thus
"All man is rational"
is true in all possible worlds if for any world n, man is rational.
Hintikka published his groundbreaking work "Knowledge and Belief" on
epistemic logic -- the semantics of which is 'possible-worlds'. He uses now two
dyadic operators:
B(A, p)
and
K(A, p)
to represent that A believes and knows that p respectively. He liked to
play with 'paradoxes' like
K(A, p) --> KK(A, p)
i.e. if you know that God exists, you know that you know that God exists.
Hintikka was appointed professor of Practical Philosophy at Helsinki --
which was a good thing since, having been born there, he never got lost! In
fact, he moved not far from the house where he had been born. And a nice
house it was, too!
Hintikka later became professor of philosophy at Stanford -- which is a
bit away from Helsinki, if just more or less at the same distance from the
beach (different beaches, admittedly).
Stanford, with Hintikka, Patrick Suppes and Dagfinn Föllesdal, and the
programme initiated by Grice "Hands across the Bay" from across the Bay in
UC/Berkeley -- became one of the leading centres of philosophy of science and
philosophical logic, if not conceptual analysis: Urmson and S. N. Hampshire
also taught there.
Hintikka’s new interests included inductive logic and semantic information.
He would say, "What's the good of a philosopher if you don't have a new
interest?"
He shared his time between Stanford and Helsinki for a while.
Later Hintikka started his work with D. Reidel’s Publishing Company (later
Kluwer Academic Publishers) in Holland as the editor-in-chief of the
journal "Synthese" and the book series "The Synthese Library" -- which Geary
calls "hardly synthetic".
This activity made Hintikka the most influential editor of philosophical
works. In fact, he was co-editor of a festschrift, as it were, for Quine, who
had written "Words and Objections". This came out in Reidel as Words and
ObjectIONS -- what's the good of a philosophical theory if you are not going
to criticise it, as Joaquin Phoenix says in "Irrational man"? -- and they
invited H. P. Grice to contribute. Grice took his time -- which delayed the
publication of the thing -- and Hintikka was strict with deadlines -- but
eventually the thing came out with Grice's "Vacuous Names" in it, and a
short reply by Quine crediting Grice's brilliancy.
Hintikka was appointed to a Research Professorship in the Academy of
Finland which allowed him to establish a research group of Finnish scholars
working mainly in logic, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and
history of philosophy.
The Academy of Finland owes its name to the Academy of Athens founded by
Plato. Most countries have Academies: Greece first, then Rome, then Italy,
then France. Then Finland. Even Britain has its academy and Grice was
appointed FBA in 1966 but he delayed the deliverance of his philosophical
lecture
for the British Academy to 1971, when he came up with "Intention and
Uncertanity": a parody on Hart and Hampshire's 'slightly ridiculous' claims in
their joint essay for "Mind" on intention and certainty.
As a teacher and supervisor, Hintikka was highly influential though the
richness of his new ideas and research initiatives.
Many of the former students of Hintikka have been appointed to chairs in
philosophy. To wit: Risto Hilpinen, Raimo Tuomela, Juhani Pietarinen, Ilkka
Niiniluoto, Simo Knuuttila, Veikko Rantala, Juha Manninen, Lauri Carlson,
Esa Saarinen, Matti Sintonen, Gabriel Sandu.
Lauri Carlson wrote a Synthese Library essay on "Dialogue games" -- the
ideas will be later developed by Hintikka himself in his contribution to P. G.
R. I. C. E., the Grice festschrift edited by Grandy and Warner.
Hintikka divorced his first wife Soili.
Hintikka married Merrill Bristow Provence -- Mrs. Hintikka willl later
co-edit with Vermazen a festschrift for Davidson and they invited H. P. Grice
to contribute. He did with a brilliant essay on 'akrasia'.
Hintikka and Provence were appointed at Tallahassee, Florida.
Hintikka married Ghita Holmström.
Hintikka became philosophy professor at Boston -- not far from where he
had been a fellow in the next town -- when he was in Harvard, Massachussets
-- He would walk from Boston to Cambridge, and back, as he seemed to prefer
the bookshops in Cambridge than those in Boston.
During his Boston pewriod, Hintikka resided in a 'cottage' (as
non-New-Englanders call them) at Marlborough.
Marlborough was not named after the person -- via rigid designation -- but
after the borough.
Hintikka retired from Boston and moved back to Finland.
Besides his activities in research, teaching, and publication, Hintikka
served in many important positions in international organizations, among
others vice president of The Association for Symbolic Logic, vice-president
and
later president of the Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of
Science of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science
(DLMPS/IUHPS), president of the Charles S. Peirce Society -- D. Ritchie was
mentioning this genial philosopher recently -- and the chairman of the
organizing committee of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy.
As a proof of the appreciation of Hintikka’s work, a volume dedicated to
him in "The Library of Living Philosophers" was published.
Hintikka’s publications cover an exceptionally wide range of topics.
During his career he published lots of books or monographs, edited lots of
books, and authored lots of essays in international journals or
collections.
His main works deal with:
-- mathematical logic (proof theory, infinitary logics, IF-logic)
-- intensional logic and propositional attitudes
-- philosophy of logic and mathematics
-- philosophy of language (game-theoretical semantics, quantifiers,
anaphora)
-- philosophy of science (interrogative model of inquiry)
-- epistemology, and
-- history of philosophy (Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Peirce, Frege,
Wittgenstein, Grice -- in the P. G. R. I. C. E. festschrift).
A genius.
Speranza
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