Anil Gupta | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1949 (age 76–77) |
| Education | |
| Education | University of London (B.Sc.) University of Pittsburgh (Ph.D.) |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Analytic philosophy |
| Main interests | Logic Epistemology Philosophy of language Metaphysics |
| Notable ideas | Revision theory of truth Hypothetical given Reformed empiricism |
Anil K. Gupta (/ˈɡʊptə/; born 1949) is anIndian-Americanphilosopher who works primarily inlogic,epistemology,philosophy of language, andmetaphysics. Gupta is the Alan Ross Anderson Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at theUniversity of Pittsburgh. He is also a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.[1] His most recent book,The Concept of Truth: The Israel Lectures, was published byOxford University Press in January 2026.[2]
Gupta earned his B.Sc. with first-class honors from theUniversity of London in 1969. He then attended the University of Pittsburgh where he received his M.A. (1973) and Ph.D. (1977).Gupta has taught at several universities:McGill University (1975-1982),University of Illinois at Chicago (1982-1989),Indiana University (1989-2000).[3] In 2001 Gupta joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh where he served as Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and, since 2013, as Alan Ross Anderson Chair. He is married toMukta and he has two children,Daniel andDonna.[4][5]
Gupta developed an early version of the revision theory of truth.[6] Later he generalized this to a theory of circular and interdependent definitions.[7] This work was further developed, resulting in the book,The Revision Theory of Truth, co-written withNuel Belnap.
The revision theory is a semantic theory of truth that combines an unrestricted truth predicate with classical logic.[8]Revision theory takes truth to be a circular concept, defined by theTarski biconditionals,
and interprets it in a new way. Rather than interpret the truth predicate via a single extension, as is done with non-circular predicates, revision theory interprets it via a revision process. The revision process is a collection of revision sequences that result when arbitrary hypotheses concerning the interpretation of truth are revised using a rule provided by the Tarski biconditionals. In the revision process, problematic sentences such as the Liar (“this very sentence is not true”) do not settle on a definite truth value. Remarkably, however, ordinary unproblematic sentences do receive a definite truth value. If problematic types of cross-reference are eliminated from the language, then the revision process converges to a fixed point.
InThe Concept of Truth, Gupta argues that only revision theory succeeds in preservingordinary functions that the truth concept serves in our thinking.
Gupta has applied revision theory to rational choice in game theory, building on the work of André Chapuis.[9]
Gupta has recently applied the informal ideas of revision theory to problems arising in thephilosophy of perception.[10]
InEmpiricism and Experience, Gupta proposes a novelempiricist account of the logical relation between perceptual experience andknowledge.[11][12][13]
The problem Gupta addresses is that of explaining the role of experience in making our views and, in particular, perceptual judgments rational. Gupta's proposal is that the given in experience is hypothetical.[14] Rather than providing perceptual judgments with categoricalrationality, experience confers on these judgments a conditional rationality. A perceptual experience, according to Gupta, makes a subject's judgment rational if the subject's antecedent view is rational.[15] An antecedent view is the collection ofbeliefs, conceptions, and concepts that the subject of an experience brings to bear on the experience.
Gupta uses the notion of the hypothetical given to build areformed empiricism. He argues that this empiricism has significant advantages over the traditional versions of the view.[16] Among other features, Gupta's empiricism does not require the acceptance of ananti-realism about commonsense and theoretical objects, and it does not rely on theanalytic–synthetic distinction to do any substantive work. Finally, Gupta argues that his reformed empiricism incorporates plausible components of bothfoundationalism andcoherentism.[17]
InConscious Experience: A Logical Inquiry, Gupta enriches reformed empiricism with an account of empirical dialectic. This account includes an explanation of (1) how empirical reasoning can force a radical transformation of view and (2) how experience contributes to the content of empirical concepts. The latter, which is based on a theory of ostensive definitions, provides a demarcation of legitimate empirical critiques of concepts.
InThe Concept of Truth, Gupta shows that the traditional empiricist hostility toward metaphysics is unwarranted and rests on an erroneous conception of phenomenon. Reformed empiricism, he argues, provides a better account of phenomenon, one that allows us to see the metaphysical appearance–reality distinction as cognitively significant.
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