David Kaplan (philosopher)

In 2022 he received the Rolf Schock Prize in the category of "Philosophy".

In recent years, Kaplan has devoted much effort to teaching introductory logic. A main contribution has been his work to create a computer program, Logic 2000, on which students can do their assignments. Logic 2000 is currently available for use free of charge. The program has many parts, including a derivations module, a symbolizations module, a models module, and much more. The program was initially developed to complement the logic text of Donald Kalish and Richard Montague, and the derivations module therefore uses their distinctive natural deduction system. Perhaps the most significant features of the program are its feedback and error-checking capacities. The program can provide a student with immediate and extensive error messages detailing any errors the student may have made on the problem he or she is currently working on. The program's current iteration and name is Logic 2010.

In his article "Quantifying In" (1968), Kaplan discusses issues in intensional and indirect (Ungerade, or oblique) discourse, such as substitution failure, existential generalization failure, and the distinction between de re / de dicto propositional attitude attributions. Such issues were made salient primarily by W. V. Quine in his "Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes" (1956).

Kaplan began as an undergraduate at UCLA in 1951, admitted on academic probation "owing to poor grades." While he started as a music major due to his interest in jazz, he was soon persuaded by his academic counselor Veronica Kalish to take the logic course taught by her husband Donald Kalish. Kaplan went on to earn a BA in philosophy in 1956 and a BA in mathematics in 1957, continuing in the department of philosophy as a graduate student. He was the last doctoral student supervised by Rudolf Carnap, receiving his PhD in 1964 with a thesis entitled Foundations of Intensional Logic. His work continues the strongly formal approach to philosophy long associated with UCLA (as represented by mathematician-logician-philosophers such as Alonzo Church and Richard Montague).

David Benjamin Kaplan (/ˈkæplən/; born September 17, 1933) is an American philosopher. He is the Hans Reichenbach Professor of Scientific Philosophy at the UCLA Department of Philosophy. His philosophical work focuses on the philosophy of language, logic, metaphysics, epistemology and the philosophy of Frege and Russell. He is best known for his work on demonstratives, propositions, and reference in intensional contexts. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1983 and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 2007.