William Craig (1918-2016)


William Craig, professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, has died. Craig worked mainly in logic and philosophy of science, and is known for, among other things, what has come to be called Craig’s Interpolation Theorem.

Craig William

UPDATE: See this announcement from the Berkeley Philosophy Department (via Richard Zach).

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pascal engel
8 years ago

I took William Craig classes in 1978-79 at Berkeley. He used the Benson Mates texbook, but his own approach was more axiomatic. The lectures were a delight, pronounced with his slightly German accent and his detached tone of voice. The next year I did a more advanced level class, on modal logic, where we studied the book by Boolos, The Unprovability of Consistency, which had just came out. This time it was not qa smooth introduction. Craig went directly to the most difficult points, merging modal logic and proof theory. I can’t say that I followed really this seminar , but it’s probably the most fascinating I have had in logic. Craig seemed to belong to Berkeley just like its Campanile. He was wearing winter as summer the same white shirt, grey velvet pants, with his belt over his stomach. His upbringing was somewhat the same as those of the great positivists, and in the logic group at Berkeley at that time it was easy to meet Tarski, and Quine for visits. He seemed to be the perfect incarnation of the logician , but also of what it means to be devoted to truth, and to proof. I wrote him once, he replied kindly. He seemed to live in eternity.