Jon Barwise

Kenneth Jon Barwise (June 29, 1942 - March 5, 2000) was a US mathematician, philosopher and logician who proposed some fundamental revisions to the way that logic is understood and used.

Born Independence, Missouri to Kenneth T. and Evelyn, he was a precocious child.

A pupil of Solomon Feferman at Stanford University, Barwise started his research in infinitary logic. After positions as assistant professor at the Universities of Yale and Wisconsin, during which time his interests turned to natural language, he returned to Stanford in 1981 to direct the Center for Study of Language and Information .

Barwise contended that, by being explicit about the context in which a proposition is made, the situation, many problems in the application of logic can be eliminated. He sought ... to understand meaning and inference within a general theory of information, one that takes us outside the realm of sentences and relations between sentences of any language, natural or formal. In particular, he claimed that such an approach resolved the liar paradox. He made use of Peter Aczel 's antifounded set theory in understanding "vicious circles" of reasoning.

He was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1999 and throughout the rest of his life made an exhaustive exploration of his condition both through conventional and alternative medicine, and by articulating his own emotional experience. The Ting-sha Institute in Inverness, California played an important part in his journey.

Works

• Barwise, K. J. (1988) The Situation in Logic ISBN 0937073326
• Barwise, K. J. & Etchemendy, J. (1987) The Liar: An Essay in Truth and Circularity ISBN 19505072X
• Barwise, K. J. & Moss, L. (1996) Vicious Circles. On the Mathematics of Non-Wellfounded Phenomena ISBN 1575860082

External links

• In Memoriam: Kenneth Jon Barwise by Solomon Feferman The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic vol. 6(4) Dec. 2000, pp505-8 (PostScript)
• He Taught Us How to Die memorial of Barwise's terminal illness by S. Holly Stocking