MOVING TO FRONT FROM SEPTEMBER 16--UPDATED
Professor Kripke was one of the 20th-century's major figures in philosophy of language and logic (see, for example). There are a handful of analytic philosophers who will likely be read a century from now, and Kripke is one of them. Most recently, he taught at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, but he spent most of his career at Princeton University. I will add links to memorial notices as they appear.
Kripke was enough of a phenomenon that a 1977 New York Times piece profiled him. Although Kripke taught at Princeton when I was an undergraduate, I did not know him (he did not teach many undergraduates); I met him a decade ago after giving at talk at the CUNy Graduate Center (Stephen Neale told me he was a regular reader of the blog!). I gave a talk on Nietzsche, and there was the great Kripke! He came to the dinner at a Korean restaurant in midtown, and even sat next to me, and I talked with him a bit then--he spoke softly, but I enjoyed talking to him in a wholly informal setting. A fond and bittersweet memory today!
Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Kripke or would like to comment on his contributions to philosophy.
UPDATE: An obituary from the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
ANOTHER: The NYT obituary.
AND ANOTHER: From The Guardian, with a nice account of the argument of Naming and Necessity.
