John Perry (philosopher)

John Richard Perry (born January 16, 1943) is an American philosopher who is professor emeritus at Stanford University and the University of California, Riverside. He has made significant contributions to philosophy in the fields of philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. He is known primarily for his work on situation semantics (together with Jon Barwise), reflexivity, indexicality, personal identity, and self-knowledge.

John Perry was born in Lincoln, Nebraska on January 16, 1943. He received his B.A. in philosophy from Doane College in 1964, and his Ph.D. in philosophy from Cornell University in 1968 with a thesis entitled Identity. In the acknowledgements of his thesis, he thanked professors Keith Donnellan, Max Black, and Sydney Shoemaker for their support.

He taught philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles (1968–1974) , before joining the faculty at Stanford University (1974–2008) where he is Henry Waldgrave Professor of Philosophy Emeritus. He then taught at the University of California, Riverside (2008–2014) where he is now Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus.

He was awarded the Jean Nicod Prize in 1999. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

He was co-host of Philosophy Talk, a nationally syndicated radio program which he co-founded with Ken Taylor in 2004. He is also part of the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI)—an independent research center founded in 1983.

Perry has made contributions to many areas of philosophy, including logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind.

Perry's 1978 book A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality deals with standard problems in the theory of personal identity in the form of a dialogue between a mortally wounded university professor, Gretchen Weirob, and her two friends, Sam Miller and Dave Cohen. The views represented include those of Bernard Williams, John Locke, and Derek Parfit. The format of associating different philosophical positions with different characters in a dialogue recalls David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

In logic, Perry and Jon Barwise are known for discussion of the slingshot argument, especially in their 1981 article "Semantic Innocence and Uncompromising Situations".